Have you ever directed a choir?  Taught a class of energetic children?  Directed a play?  Led a band?  Can you think of what all these things might have in common?  They all involve reading and giving cues. 

The choirmaster listens to the organist to know when to cue the sections of the choir to begin and end their parts.  The teacher reads the room each day, and then gives the children cues to transition from activity to activity.  A director manages the timing of each line of dialog, each staging direction, and choreographs entrances and exits from the stage.  A band director coordinates the movements and melodies of each musician and dancer.

Managing a garden requires the same sort of close observation, sense of timing, and well-timed action.  Plants respond to nature’s cues:  the length of each day, and the freezing hours of winter before the coming of spring.  Plants respond to the available moisture, the intensity of the sun, and the warmth of their soil.  These complex cues tell each plant when it is safe to break dormancy and grow, and when to begin shutting down again for the season.

Gardeners grow accustomed to these patterns.  We expect plants to take the stage of our garden in a predictable procession from winter’s snowdrops to autumn Camellias.  We know when to prune and when to plant, when to add mulch and when to rake it back to reveal fresh shoots emerging from the Earth in Spring.  And when the cues get all mixed up, and the plants hesitate to grow, we don’t quite know what to do.

This has been a mixed-up season.  Fall was long and warm.  Winter came hard and fast, with record cold before many plants had gone dormant.  Periods of winter warmth were mixed with cold spells.  And cold nights have lasted long into what would normally be early summer here.  It was 49F here this morning.  The weather has been cooler than usual, drier than usual, and it has been a challenging year for new plantings to take hold and grow, even with lots of support. 

In March, I missed seeing the usual masses of Muscari blooms.  But I found Muscari in bloom in a patio container this morning.  These last several months have been a vigil to see what survived our record cold December, and then dig up and replace the remains of those plants that perished.  I’m still finding tentative tender fronds emerging on ferns that I had thought were fried.  I’m delighted to find these signs of life and now wonder about those I have already replaced.

I’ve spent a lot of time watering this week, as though it were already past mid-summer.  The ground in the upper garden remains hard.  But the watering has finally triggered perennials to pop up, and a few to bloom.  I was so happy to find bright blue S. ‘Mystic Spires’ on Wednesday, and yet another one in bud this morning.  Calla lilies are showing their spotted leaves in spots I had forgotten they grow.  The lamb’s ears have gained some height, though none are close to blooming yet.  But we finally have a few bright Verbena bonariensis flowers and a few lavender chives. 

The Yorktown onions bloomed this week.  We’ve been watching for them along the Colonial Parkway for weeks now.  They were very slow to send up bloom stalks, and then the buds remained tight and green.  The flowers are very small, but at least we can see their burgundy heads waving in the breeze blowing in off the York River.  Soon to be the gale blowing in off the Bay….

Yes, it’s the first official weekend of summer, when folks here head to the pool and the beach.  And we have a major storm coming up the coast bringing wind, waves, cool temperatures, and rain.  But I’m so very grateful for the promised rain!

We finally moved all of the tropical Begonias and Alocasias back outside for the summer last week, swept out the garage, and gave them a good deep watering and a little nutrition.  Now I’m watching for signs of renewed life.  There is such pleasure in watching fresh leaves emerge, bright and healthy, after a long winter.  It is like the long exhale after holding one’s breath way too long.  There is an ease to summer.  A vibrant abundance we crave after the world has been dormant for so long. 

It’s true: “Better late than never.”  The timing of spring has just been wonky this year all around. The daffodils seemed to all bloom at once- early and mid-season varieties, with the late season ones in bud before the early ones finished.  Other bulbs appeared out of sequence, and the trees took their own sweet time to unfurl their leaves.

But we’re passed all of that now, and summer is in sight on the street, if not standing at the doorstep as she ought to be by now.   Did I mention that we have roses blooming out front, and geraniums by the door?  Those Alocasias I thought had died, didn’t.  Their first tiny leaves just poked through the soil, right under the Caladiums I just planted in their pots.  Who knows what sort of jumble will be up and fighting for sunlight by the middle of June.

I’m amazed again and again by the resilience of life.  “Plants just want to live,” is something I tell novice gardeners time and again.  Trust the plants to survive all of your misunderstandings and mistakes, your naivete and absentminded neglect, if they can just hold on until their needs are met once again.  Water, warmth, nutrition, light; it is very simple, really.  All the cues are there.  We can just need to take notice and respond.

With appreciation to Jim Stephens of Garden Ruminations, who hosts Six on Saturday each week.

You might enjoy my new series of posts, Plants I Love That Deer Ignore.

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