River Oats
I wake up to the woodpecker at dawn, thrumming somewhere outside my bedroom window and listen to the mourning doves calling up in the pines as the afternoon comes on, the glider arms cool against my skin as I rock back and forth on the front porch. The sparrows eat the grass seed we sowed on the path by the forsythia patch, a crow has claimed the compost heap as his own and Zsa-Zsa makes her way down to the little marshy bluebell bed each evening and sits waiting for something to cross her path.
Forced forsythia branches have lit up the back room for over a month and ‘Diane’ twigs ornament the kitchen chest, her pink ribbony blooms faded to mauve in the indoor light. Witchhazels and grasses are at their best backlit by the setting sun, but I can’t do without bringing woody things inside in the winter. I’m waiting for what I think is a white oak twig to reveal itself to me in a vase on the library table. Little mouse-ear leafs will tell the tale.
My outdoor task this week is to finish cutting back the native river oats (Chasmanthium latifolium), also called northern sea oats, and placing the seedy stems along the eroded creek banks, staving them in with old stiff Verbasina stalks so they will have a chance to take hold. I long to see them blowing over the creek.
Now is the best time to transplant Snowdrops (Galanthus sp.), best done in clumps; always allow them to reseed as their little nodding caps turn into green beads. We grow G. elwesii, the Giant Snowdrop, an heirloom Greek variety. Snowdrops love to naturalize and resist deer and rodents. An early source of nectar for bees, along with the honeysuckle bush, Lonicera fragrantissima, covered for months now in creamy popcorn-like blooms that fill the air with their Fruit Loopy perfume.
Spring has sprung in the hollow.