The sun shone bright and hot on Wednesday as our air conditioner roared back to life after months of winter cold. Our thermometer read 85 on the shaded deck but the official reading at the airport was a few degrees higher. Instant summer reminded us once again why we treasure spring. There was nothing gradual or gentle about the sudden warmth. Birds and squirrels flocked to the bowl of water on the patio, bathing and drinking throughout the day. I refilled it several times for them as the day unfolded. Everyone visiting the garden was thirsty and busy responding to the signals of spring. My efforts to prune and spruce things up outdoors ended in late morning as it grew hotter, even in the shade. Even sitting on the patio became too much as the sun climbed higher above the trees.

Every time I stepped outside on Wednesday the landscape was changed. Tight buds Wednesday morning opened into Magnolia liliiflora flowers by mid-afternoon. Daffodils surged open from bud to flower in half a day, and on the oak and maple trees buds swelled and the tips of new leaves appeared by evening. We had near summertime temperatures all that night.

But those temperatures began to fall soon after dawn on Thursday. Clouds filled the sky and the wind picked up by mid-morning, bringing darkness and the crash of thunder in the distance. I was busily writing at the computer and wondered if I needed to shut everything down for the duration of the storm, but the front blew past with a blast of heavy rain. Soon enough I could hear sleet mixed with the rain and see the sheets of water falling from the sky growing lumpier. By noon the temperature was dropping about six degrees per hour, and by 2:30 huge white flakes of snow replaced the rain.

Once the snow began it fell hard and fast in enormous cottony flakes for the remainder of the afternoon. Despite the morning’s rain, the snow began to stick to branch and blade almost immediately. We could only wonder at the blanket of white quickly covering the lawn and bending the daffodils to the ground under its weight. Temperatures officially hovered just above freezing, but the wind made everything much colder. The air conditioner rested while we turned up the gas logs once again, returning to our winter habits for holding in what heat we had. We added layers of clothing as the day progressed.

We could only watch from the windows as buds opening just hours before were encased in icy snow. Limbs on shrubs near the house bent towards the ground and wind howled through the bamboo and trees in the ravine. Icy wind whipped right through to the skin when I went up to gather the mail. By then the ground was white and the flowering hellebores had disappeared beneath the snow.

And then it stopped, as suddenly as it had begun, a half hour before sunset. The last of the clouds blew off to the east as the sun dipped low in the western sky, bathing the snowy trees in golden light. Sunbeams shown in the kitchen window as bare limbs in our neighbors’ yard sparkled as though covered in crystals. And they were covered in ice crystals, catching the light in water droplets even as the ice and snow on each branch began to melt at the touch of the setting sun.

Patchy snow greeted us at Friday morning’s sunrise. Most of the flowers and buds shook off the snow without damage. The few hours of temperatures at freezing just before dawn on Friday morning did no harm, as far as we could see. I spent some time on Friday exploring what the mid-March snowstorm left behind. Everything in the garden accelerated with the sudden warmth over the past week, and is also responding to the rain and melting snow. One can only wonder at what the rest of this unusual springtime season will bring.

But I am inspired now to return to pruning and planting, clearing and seeking a fresh vision for the year ahead. I bought the first trays of plants for the season on Tuesday and Wednesday, ordered ferns from my friends at Fancy Ferns in Washington, and have taken a few hundred photos of spring’s unfolding this week.

Wintery weather is good for writing, and my next book about growing trees and planting personal forests is well underway. I hope to have it ready to share sometime next month. Now the challenge will be to balance writing with puttering in the garden.

I brought most of our new plants into the garage to shelter through Thursday’s snowstorm, though a little Picea remains outside in its nursery pot. And I planted a little rosemary in a sheltered spot on the front patio. It is a new variety I’ve not previously grown and looks very sturdy, with the promise of growing into a respectable shrub in a few years.

We have another temperature dip forecast early in the coming week, and then we should have more moderate temperatures on into spring. At least that is what we expect.

My mother and I always debated about when to plant new plants outside each spring, and when to bring out pots that overwintered in the house. She favored late April, after the 15th, while I always wanted to get an early start on the season and begin planting out in March. I am still trying to temper my impetuous nature with her cautious wisdom.

We’ll see how long that can last this spring….

With appreciation to Jim Stephens of Garden Ruminations,

who hosts Six on Saturday each week.