Sweet April
March finally closed in on itself, gathered up its late-snow and bluster, and allowed itself on its final day to embrace some sunshine and and bright blue skies. It was a gracious farewell to a month of mistreatment. The clouds crept in after midnight as April arrived, softening the full moon and blanketing an Easter Sunday at dawn with soft light and hopeful birdsong. The robins, doing their thing by mid-morning, took advantage of the mild air and peeks of sun, not bothered at all by a mostly cloudy sky to start April. And why should they be bothered? They live in the moment, one day at a time knowing that today's clouds will break for tomorrow's sun. It can rain all it wants to on a Tuesday because by Friday it will be warmer and greener and that much further from this year's winter. April is a month of optimism.
200 mm 1/60 sec f/5.6 ISO 560
200 mm 1/500 sec f/5.6 ISO 100
The flowers of early April are all about embracing such optimism. Every year, right on schedule, the bulbs that were planted on a distant October day bloom all yellow and pink, deep purple and light blue and creamy white. The first brave daffodils that appeared, and made it through a worrisome coating of ice at the end of the third week of March, are joined by others finally confident of enough warmth to sustain them. The scattered daffodils, large and small, were planted thirty years ago. They tell me every year that spring break is over, that summer is not far off, that my children aren't children anymore, that ten, fifteen, twenty-five years have passed, and that even with all of life's changes, they will be there each spring constant and unchanging.
200 mm 1/125 sec f/5.6 ISO 140
The hyacinths have held their place in the garden for fifteen years. They're not as prolific as the daffodils, but they don't need to be. The handful of hyacinths are loud and bold. No gently swaying in the breeze for these flowers. They draw in the bees and throw their sweet, strong scent around the corner and down the walk well before one lays eyes on them. For all their bravado, though, they are still early-spring flowers, and a couple of unseasonably warm days will dim their purple hue and steal their wonderful scent. I like to clip one, one is enough, to bring inside and enjoy the sweetness until the late-April lilacs bloom and I can do the same with them.
200 mm 1/125 sec f/5.6 ISO 800
200 mm 1/125 sec f/5.6 ISO 400
Scattered about where the small crocuses bloomed are the wood hyacinths. Just a few inches tall, they quietly show off their wee bursts of color. They spend their early-spring days hoping they don't get stepped on. When you're quite small, and not nestled in the safety of a garden bed, this is a very real possibility. They are short-lived in their blooming, pretty signs of spring standing proudly before the sun gets too warm and the lawn mower is tempted to mow the grass they are growing in.
Finally, there is the beautiful white-with-blue-stripes cousin of the purple scillas that is rising just above the sea of purple. This is only the third year that I've seen these in the yard, and they have become a favorite of mine. They are so different from any flower I've seen in recent Aprils, so dainty yet showy with their bright blue stripes and soft yellow center. There are only five clusters that have thrown themselves in with the purple scillas, and I sincerely hope they will decide to broaden their limited growing space and spread down the slope of ground that they hover just above.
200 mm 1/160 sec f/5.6 ISO 100
200 mm 1/320 sec f/5.6 ISO 140
April is all about the the little blooms, the tiny wild violets and the yellow petals on the forsythia bushes. It is not a month for begonias and hydrangeas, for roses climbing a fence and maroon clematis snaking up a trellis. April is for enjoying the first of the spring and summer flowers, when the weeds are still too cold and lazy to be a time-consuming nuisance. Shaking off the vestiges of winter doesn't take any effort in the garden in April; the bees and the breezes and the sun will do it for you.
