rite of spring

Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, spring is in the air. The time has come when it's just necessary to believe it.

In what's become a more-or-less annual event, I've ordered a few packets of seeds and will (if things proceed as they usually do) nurture them a while before learning that after too many day's neglect they've all died. If nothing else, it helps to pass the time until the last frost. By then the commercial nurseries will be fully stocked and I'll go out and just buy the healthy young plants I'd wanted all winter.

It's mostly the dream of poppies that is sustaining me through these dry, cold days. I've ordered the Beauty of Livermore, pictured above, which promises "crimson-scarlet blooms up to 6 inches across on sturdy 3-4 foot plants." And, in an overabundance of confidence: coral bells, anemone, jacob's ladder, foxglove, and Irish moss.