The weather has been rainy this past week, and now the sun is out and everything is starting to heat up again. It feels like that shift happens almost overnight, even though you know it’s been building.
I’ve been thinking about going out to clean up my garden bed and see what’s still there from last season, what can be salvaged and what needs to be cleared out. I also want to pick up some flowers, just to bring a little more color back in.
It’s nice seeing the yard come back on its own, especially with the wildflowers popping up in places I didn’t plant them. For a little while, it feels full and unexpected, until my husband goes out and weedeats them down.
My lantanas and Mexican heather have started to grow again, which I wasn’t sure would happen after the frost. When the freeze came through, all the top growth died off and everything looked like it was gone. I remember cutting back the dead leaves and stems, hoping something would come back, but not really knowing if it would.
We planted them last year because they’re perennials, something that would return and carry through the seasons. Seeing them start to grow again now feels like a small reassurance that they’re doing what they’re supposed to do, even after looking like nothing was left.
It makes me think about my grandmothers and how much they loved to garden. My maw maw had irises, four o’clocks, and so many other flowers I never learned the names of. There was always something blooming when you walked up to her house, and it had this scent to it that I can still remember, even if I can’t fully describe it. She would pick wildflowers sometimes and wrap them in a wet paper towel to keep them fresh until she got home and could put them in water.
My nana kept petunias in an old kettle in her yard. My cousins and I used to run back and forth to it as a race in the front yard, turning something simple into a game. Later, she had a rose bush that grew along a trellis, and I remember how it slowly took up more space over time.
My mom loved flowers too. She planted a rose bush outside the window of our house, and it’s still there after all these years. Every spring, my dad would pick her sweet williams from the side of the road, those wild purple flowers that would show up without being planted.
There’s something about this time of year that brings all of that back.
The way things die off in the winter and return again, not exactly the same, but still alive. The bees and butterflies start to come back, moving through everything without much notice unless you stop and look. The sound of birds in the morning feels louder somehow, or maybe I’m just paying more attention.
After weeks of gray skies and everything looking dull, seeing color come back feels like a relief.
Not in a dramatic way. Just enough to notice.
