Coming Back to Life in the Spring Habitat Garden
A garden designer discovers how patience during this seasonal transition can lead to great rewards and settle the self
Pasque flower blooms the first week of every April, so it should not have been a surprise when I stumbled upon it while clearing away some of last year’s brown detritus from the garden. Why it’s always a surprise is beyond me, but that’s the case every year.
I didn’t keep my nose near the bloom for too long, as there were plenty of other creatures wanting to check it out.
I searched around the garden for more emerging plants but saw none. No wild geranium (Geranium maculatum, zones 2 to 9), pictured, or red columbine (Aquilegia canadensis, zones 3 to 7); not even any golden ragwort (Packera aurea, zones 3 to 8) or Virginia bluebells (Mertensia virginica, zones 3 to 8) had started to bloom.
I searched around the garden for more emerging plants but saw none. No wild geranium (Geranium maculatum, zones 2 to 9), pictured, or red columbine (Aquilegia canadensis, zones 3 to 7); not even any golden ragwort (Packera aurea, zones 3 to 8) or Virginia bluebells (Mertensia virginica, zones 3 to 8) had started to bloom.
In the warm sun, so much stronger that day than it was just a month earlier, I leaned back into an Adirondack chair and closed my eyes, dizzy with the light and the little stars that formed behind my eyelids.
Like coreopsis dancing above thin blades of sideoats grama (Bouteloua curtipendula, zones 3 to 9), I was already in summer — maybe it was this summer, or a summer in the future or years behind me. I could hear katydids in the wild beds around the house as sweat rose out of my skin and glued my T-shirt to my back.
Yes, I was looking forward to putting in some new edging and adding pea gravel to a sitting area. I was even anticipating the itch of a mosquito bite as I waited at dusk for the lightning bugs to emerge.
Like coreopsis dancing above thin blades of sideoats grama (Bouteloua curtipendula, zones 3 to 9), I was already in summer — maybe it was this summer, or a summer in the future or years behind me. I could hear katydids in the wild beds around the house as sweat rose out of my skin and glued my T-shirt to my back.
Yes, I was looking forward to putting in some new edging and adding pea gravel to a sitting area. I was even anticipating the itch of a mosquito bite as I waited at dusk for the lightning bugs to emerge.
But there also were many problems nipping at my heels. A bench was falling apart and needed replacing. Treads on the deck stairs had snapped in two. The lawn had succumbed to a very dry year, a weather pattern that is becoming more frequent.
The weight of things, moments I can both control and not control, often collides for me in the garden. It’s like watching an orb weaver spider dash to the center of its web, where a bumblebee soon gets turned over and over, preserved for a later meal.
The bee can no longer pollinate the native flowers I’ve lovingly planted for them, but the spider is a beneficial predator whose presence means I’ve created something greater than the sum of my complex emotions. Good things are going to happen, unexpected and unknown; I just have to be ready.
The weight of things, moments I can both control and not control, often collides for me in the garden. It’s like watching an orb weaver spider dash to the center of its web, where a bumblebee soon gets turned over and over, preserved for a later meal.
The bee can no longer pollinate the native flowers I’ve lovingly planted for them, but the spider is a beneficial predator whose presence means I’ve created something greater than the sum of my complex emotions. Good things are going to happen, unexpected and unknown; I just have to be ready.
And that’s where the faith comes in, what the garden teaches us if we’re still enough in its presence. While our hearts thump and radiate anxiety and doubt throughout us, those pulses are also the echo of every wing beat and mating call in this suburban landscape, converted from lawn to diverse habitat beds and made as an offering to whatever might stop by.
Every fear and joy settles here like autumn leaves or winter snow, beautiful and purposeful if we can stop to give our understanding to it. We are alive, so wonderfully alive and exposed in the garden. The first spring blooms will pass more quickly than expected — some to be savored, some to be left behind (I’m looking at you, henbit) — all taking their turn assuredly.
When I open my eyes back to the sun while sitting in my rickety chair, I see that some sedge in the far corner is greening up. I hear red-winged blackbirds echoing at the pond’s edge. We are all circles that complete one another — another year in the garden means another year to learn how to come back to life in all its raw richness and glory. “This is the year,” I whisper to myself. “This is the year I plant far more pasque flower.”
More on Houzz
Read more guides about gardening with native plants
Work with a drought-tolerant-landscape pro near you
Shop for gardening tools
Every fear and joy settles here like autumn leaves or winter snow, beautiful and purposeful if we can stop to give our understanding to it. We are alive, so wonderfully alive and exposed in the garden. The first spring blooms will pass more quickly than expected — some to be savored, some to be left behind (I’m looking at you, henbit) — all taking their turn assuredly.
When I open my eyes back to the sun while sitting in my rickety chair, I see that some sedge in the far corner is greening up. I hear red-winged blackbirds echoing at the pond’s edge. We are all circles that complete one another — another year in the garden means another year to learn how to come back to life in all its raw richness and glory. “This is the year,” I whisper to myself. “This is the year I plant far more pasque flower.”
More on Houzz
Read more guides about gardening with native plants
Work with a drought-tolerant-landscape pro near you
Shop for gardening tools
Maybe it’s partly because as one gets older, time becomes less relevant — weeks and months and years mingle. Only sudden hardship or joy causes a moment to be etched into stone.
The garden, this life, can seem so unordered and rife with apprehension that it’s easy to forget the inevitable certainties that bring us into moments of grace. And there are plenty of those moments in a wildlife garden.
Before moving on in my April garden, I bent down and smelled the pasque flower (Pulsatilla patens, USDA zones 4 to 9; find your zone), pictured. To me, its scent resembles that of inflatable pool floats, but to the bees and a few early-rising crescent butterflies on that warm afternoon, it was the best thing since sliced bread.