It’s a few days past vernal equinox.  Still cold, rainy, and ever-gray in the Pacific Northwest.  My rain chain has been overwhelmed for the past couple hours.  Gloomy, but I know better days are to come.  

In fact, there are another two hours left of daylight outside.  I am inside looking out as I have been in the previous days of winter.  Fireplace on and watching the tree limbs outside dance the wind song.  Everything is waking up including that space inside me.  That place that comes alive when the sun shines down and warms my face.  

I felt it yesterday when the rain gave way to partially sunny skies.  I transplanted a bush and planted a new (to me) Japanese Maple.  And I noted all the signs of spring.  The buds on branches, the tulip foliage several inches above the soil, multi-purpled crocuses opening to the sky, and the fruit loop smelling flowers emerging from my Daphne with its variegated leaves.  White and purple Vinca flowering, “hello.” It’s a spark.  And I am hopeful.  

I am glad to be done with winter.  I hope it does not make a surprise return and snuff out that spark of spring.  I’ll be glad when winter is in the far distance of my garden’s rear view mirror.  I suppose it is not all that bad though and one must try to make the best of it.

Winter is a time to become well acquainted with the intricate skeletal structures of one’s garden.  It’s one of those “winter interest” type of things.  Branches twisting and reaching and intertwining at times.  Something you can’t observe when the branches are clothed with leaves.  Some, like my coral bark maple and red twig dogwood, have beautiful red color that brightly contrasts the gray and especially snow. 

Others, like my evergreen rhododendrons, lend their green colored leaves year round. A welcomed divergence from the dark monochrome days.  I should also give credit to the miniature, metallic purple beads of my beauty berry.  Stunning.  And of course, there are the evergreen trees that , during a good storm, litter the ground with green garden bits like tourists throwing beads on Bourbon Street during Mardis Gras.  

Only it doesn’t feel like a party in winter here.  It feels like a restless slumber.  Dreaming of flowers and sun and warmth only to awaken to more frost and darkness day after day.  However, winter does have a flower in its cap.  The Hellebore.

For me, the Hellebore is the bridge that takes one from winter sadness safely across the frozen pond into rejuvenating spring.  So many varieties of late winter blooming Hellebores exist to brighten the shady parts of the garden!  Some have flowers (sepals really) that face downward and others greet you face on.  A good many colors too though I’d say most are subdued.  The real color show still belongs to summer and other plant varieties.  

I don’t need a gopher to tell me when spring is coming.  I let the Hellebores whisper to me instead.  They give a much needed respite from drab of the winter months and make them not so hellebore-ing after all.