SPRING AT 78 RPM

That title certainly gives away my age; anyone under 40 perhaps won’t know what 78 rpm means.  “78 revolutions per minute”, that was the speed of those brightly colored vinyl records that generally were children’s songs.  Albums, all you savvy people know, were 33 1/3 rpm and singles were called “45’s” because they went at 45 rpm’s.  So, “Spring at 78 RPM” simply means it is going at full speed, in Texas anyways. 

I am writing this on the last day of March; my hands are sore from stirring wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of soil.  I am already “behind” by Texas gardening standards and should have planted my tomatoes weeks ago. The Hill country soil is a thin affair, a wee bit of scraggly soil that covers layers of limestone, laid down by all those sea creatures when we were one huge inland sea and anything you plant needs you to add all the ingredients that are missing-soil, manure, mulch etc.

Whereas my forearms, hands and back are well aware of how I spent the weekend, if my husband doesn’t feel crippled this morning, he will be revealing his secret that he is some sort of Marvel comic book superhero, for in order to plant 6, 3” pots of salvia, he had to unearth slabs of rocks large enough to build a Greek amphitheater.  Good thing he is an engineer and can figure how to lever things that would normally demand a backhoe to move, so that, once unearthed we could roll them away.

 

All the potted plants: zinnias, petunias, begonias, marigolds etc., are the usual ones I would have planted on the Cape.  And I still plant them in the “usual” containers- 10” terra cotta pots.  At the moment, they look lovely, adding color to the deck, the porch and the steps to the yard.  “For the moment” being the operative word.  That nursery saying that “We grow ‘em-you kill ‘em”, has sadly, too often been true in my experience. 

Perhaps I have too much shade for them to attain the glory you see featured on their info stick in the pot.  Perhaps because I am too cheap to spring for the huge, and costly terra cotta pots that everyone else has (think needing a backhoe to lift them) or perhaps because I am averse to using sprays or even squishing bugs that I find fascinating on their own account.  Whatever the reason, what looks lovely now, will, in all probability be less than glorious a few months down the road. 

The key to accepting this, is to realize that Feb, March and April are what April, May and June are on the Cape and by May we are swinging into the equivalent of August and it will remain August and then some, for the next 5 months.  The plants, if they survive, will look a little stressed to say the least, through those 5 months of August but that only applies to the ones I try to plant.  Another time we will sing the praises of all those wildflowers that thrive on an inch of soil and say,  “just don’t touch me, don’t fertilize me, don’t do me any favors and I will be just fine.”  Ironic eh?

Along with a planting frenzy, the number of baby animals at the Wildlife refuge are   growing exponentially every day, school groups are booked straight through the end of May and company is coming for Easter.So, if you don’t see any new installments here, then know that I am spinning at 78 rpm, and if I DO manage new installments, you may suspect that I have a little of the Marvel comic hero in me too.