Here Comes The Sun And I Say, "It's Alright!"

Today, for the first time, it seems that I can actually sense the extra light. Here in Washington, D.C.,the sun rose two minutes earlier today than it did on the Solstice and sets three minutes later. Five extra minutes of light may not seem like much, but it's enough to boost my mood and convince me, even more so than the arrival of all the garden porn catalogues, that Spring really is coming. Miniver Cheevy, who posts too seldom these days, posts a gorgeous tale that explains why we keep watch on the Solstice.

Not that I'm immune to the garden porn. This will be a transitional year in the garden for me. By late summer I hope to have some landscape designers looking at the yard and giving me plans for a fairly complete rehaul of my yard. So I'm reluctant to plant too much beyond some annuals; the more that I put in the ground this Spring, the more I'll have to move, or lose, once the work on the yard gets going. And some things -- the deciduous magnolia in the front yard, the rosebushes along the side of the house, probably the rosebushes in back behind the porch, likely the hedge of undeterminate species at the end of the driveway -- will likely be having their final year. I'll probably try, AGAIN, to grow violas in the woodland garden in back. I want to grow a lot of marigolds for Day of the Dead. I might be unable to resist adding a few more toad lillies and jack-in-the-pulpits. There has to be some kind of basil that would grow well in my current (not sunny enough) shade garden. And this Fall, I planted bulbs for what's supposed to be a truly black hyacinth. I can't wait to see those in the Spring.