Springing

Around here, Spring always seems like it is trying to learn how to drive a manual transmission. We get these spurts and starts and sudden jolts. Then, especially if that year Spring is on a hill, we sort of slip backwards until Spring remembers the brake.

 A week ago today, we had another snow storm. Wet sloppy snow came straight down all day.

 And while it hid the crocuses that had started blooming, Saturday was so warm everything melted and the sun shone again. Yesterday it was a lovely 68°F! Tomorrow it is supposed to be 35°F and sleeting. Hopefully, Spring will not stall too long here. 

One of my spring-break projects had been to whip the forsythia into shape. I've wanted to do this every year and finally this year I just dove in. 

The unruly plant right in the middle got whacked down to the ground. This means there will be no yellow on this one this year.  But I am hoping that with all the new growth next year it will be glorious.

As chance would have it, the day I decided to deal with the forsythia, one of my professors from grad school visited. She is also a fantastic gardener and I asked her advice about the plant. Among other things, she told me her mother used to cut stalks early and force them indoors. Since I was cutting the whole plant down I thought well, why not? 

 

I stuck them in the watering can and brought them inside. 

 

A week later little buds appeared. I pulled the stalks with the flowers and put them into another vase. 

 

They look fantastic against the blue kitchen wall. 

Meanwhile the forsythia outside (the one I left alone) has not done anything. It is still sticks. Will I get two rounds of yellow this year?