In the midst of spring’s big chill, which threatened to stick around interminably, it seemed as though summer would never come.  What was it like to leave the house comfortably without sweater, jacket, scarf and gloves?  To sit on our screened porch without benefit of a heavy wool throw, looking like a shipboard invalid in an old movie?  I couldn’t imagine. 

Now, on this first official day of the new season, it seems like summer’s been here for quite a while.  Intense heat and monsoon-like rains bid a sudden good riddance to the lengthy cold spell.  And having brought our daughter home in May after her first year at the University of Virginia, we’re enjoying the illusion of a longer summer.  This is a much-appreciated luxury.  Last summer was for our family one of the shortest, with D’s high school graduation in June and the start of the college semester in August.  Considering my mother’s relocation to Virginia, it was also one of the busiest and most stressful in my recollection.  How pleasant it is to know that this summer won’t require me to finalize the packing up of my childhood home.  My calendar is blissfully free of travel plans. 

Memories of the recent deep freeze still vivid, once the weather began to warm up, I went into gardening overdrive.  I wanted our daughter, upon her return, to be impressed by the beauty of her home environment.  She’d been immersed in the spring glory of the historic grounds of UVA, so the bar was high.  Nearly every sunny day meant a trip to the garden center for more containers, more plants, more soil.  After the frigid cold of spring, the colors of summer appeared even more spectacular.  Our fountain, newly emerged from its heavy plastic winter wrapping, looked bare and dismal.  (Every December that fountain is the bane of my husband’s existence as he drains and wraps it to weather the cold.  He did not want a “water feature” when we reworked our back yard ten years ago, but my daughter and I persuaded him.)  But with pots of bright impatiens clustered around the fountain, it reminds me of those in Charleston courtyards glimpsed through wrought-iron gates.  Even H says it looks nice. 

I’ve experimented over the years, but found that petunias and trailing vinca vines are the best choices to fill the bowl-like containers atop the brick piers along the fence line.  They flourish in extreme heat and sun. 

Our hydrangeas are blooming this year in amazing abundance and variety of color.  Perhaps it was the heavy rains of late spring that encouraged such luxuriant growth.    

Kiko’s favorite summer activity is baking himself in the hot sun on the flagstone patio.  He lies panting alarmingly for extended periods.  When it appears that he may indeed expire with his next gasping breath, he struggles to his feet and trudges to a patch of shade below the hydrangeas.  Before long he’s ready to bake again. 

Whatever your summer pleasures, may you be able to follow Kiko’s example:  seize the opportunity and enjoy! 

On this first day of spring, the fourth Nor’easter in three weeks is menacing the east coast.  It’s been dubbed Winter Storm Toby, apparently.  A cold rain falls here in northern Virginia, likely turning to snow later in the day.  March, we are told, has been colder than February for the second year in a row.  It sure feels that way.  Every morning, as I check the weather on my phone in preparation for walking with Kiko and our pack, I’m dismayed.  Another frigid day, often accompanied by biting winds.  I’d hoped to have packed away the long underwear by now.   

The famed Nation’s Capital cherry tree blossoms are on hold.  The forsythia is making only a half-hearted showing, as are the daffodils.  I’ve seen only one crocus.  It looked lonely, bedraggled, and full of regret.  Not a trace yet of the grape hyacinths I planted two falls ago that bloomed so beautifully last year.  Very few touches of green have appeared on winter’s gray-brown palette.  Spring remains in hibernation.

March really took to heart that old saying about coming in like a lion.  At the beginning of the month, our area, like many parts of the east coast, was besieged by fierce gale-force winds for two days.  Uprooted trees and branches, snapped like toothpicks, wreaked havoc on power lines, cars and some homes.  A huge pine sliced through the roof of a home in our neighborhood like a sharp knife through a birthday cake.  It narrowly missed the little daughter’s bed. 

We were lucky. We were spared any property damage, and no family members were trapped on roads or in airports.  Our daughter arrived safely home for spring break to a dark and rapidly cooling house, but we had no cause for complaint.  (Why, I wonder, must the week of spring break always be among the year’s coldest?  Some of the few snows I remember from my college days in Athens occurred during spring break.)  

When the winds at last died down and we ventured out to clean up the debris-scattered lawn, I gathered some of the branches blasted from our maple and cherry trees, brought them inside and put them in water.  Many of the buds have opened now.  Bright green maple seedlings and delicate white cherry blossoms attest to the promise of spring.  I have the evidence.  The season of new life may be biding its time, but it’s coming.     

Spring knew best to wait.  The rain here has turned to sleet.  Ice crystals weigh heavily on pine branches, and white patches are visible around the bases of trees.  May this spring storm be winter’s last. 

No flower captures my idea of the essence of carefree summer quite like the hydrangea.  Once the hydrangeas are flourishing, the school year and its unforgiving routine have ended.  There is time once again for the leisurely enjoyment of a sunny morning. 

The big, bobbing heads of hydrangeas feature prominently in childhood memories of my grandparents’ Kentucky farm, especially of July 4th family gatherings at the old house on the banks of the river.  And some of the most magnificent hydrangeas anywhere adorn the little cottage complex that becomes our home for a while every August in Cape Cod.  Hydrangeas mean summer, past and present.   

Hydrangeas were among the first flowers we planted when we moved into our house eighteen years ago.  We added more when we undertook our backyard renovation.  The hydrangeas around our house remind me of the days when my daughter’s idea of a grand adventure was splashing in her little inflatable pool on the lawn.  Hydrangeas mean warm sunshine and happy, uncomplicated times. 

I didn’t have much hope for our hydrangeas this year.  After the heavy snows of our frigid winter melted at last, much of the early foliage was black and shrunken.  The buds appeared stunted.  But as the weather warmed, the flowers rallied.  Right now, on this July 2, they are more beautiful, and more widely varied in color and depth of hue than I can remember. 

Hydrangeas are likely to wilt soon after they’re cut unless given special treatment.  To prolong their freshness considerably, follow this method:

Immerse the stems in water immediately after cutting.  Heat a cup of water to boiling.  As you arrange the flowers, and just after you recut each stem to the chosen length, hold it in the hot water for thirty seconds.  Add the stem to your arrangement in a container filled with room temperature water.  The flowers should look beautiful for several days and perhaps up to a week.  

The onset of spring reminds me of one of childhood’s most satisfying pleasures:  a brand new box of crayons.  I picture a child, bored and frustrated because for months now only the most subdued colors remain usable: a few browns, some tans, a black, a white.  As for the happy, festive shades–they’re all broken, misplaced or eaten by the dog.  At last, a fresh new box of crayons arrives.  Time again to celebrate with color. 

The greens are picked first.  Used with abandon, to color in a luxuriant foundation.  For lawns that will soon need cutting, for the first shoots of lemon balm that will grow to dominate the herb garden in a month or so.

Even cracked gray pavement receives its ribbons of green.

Next, pastels in Easter-egg shades.  For a redbud tree, delicate splotches of lavender-pink.  Palest yellow for the first dogwood blossoms. 

Yellow-green for feathery sassafras blossoms.

Bolder choices follow.  Unexpected tones of coral and red for new leaves on rose bushes and Japanese maples. Who said foliage has to be green? 

Intense golden-yellow for forsythia. 

For the Appalachian Red redbud at the corner of our house, how about a near-electric magenta?  

In the sudden sunshine following an afternoon thunderstorm, redbud blossoms take on an even greater depth and energy. 

In that same light, the pines and maples framing our garage seem to glow from within. 

And visible from our front lawn, that perfect gift of color and light:  a rainbow.  Isn’t it wonderful to have a new box of crayons?