Flowers are blooming on my painting canvas

"I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers"

Claude Monet

It's March and I'm getting Spring fever. This delightful seasonal affliction always strikes at this time of the year although there is snow on the ground with flowers remaining buried beneath frozen earth, dormant, waiting for revival.

The view out of my window is still winter with a thick layer of snow and ice on the river surface but there are signs of change. Beneath the bridge and in the middle of the river, an open expanse of water snakes down the centre. No sign of ducks as yet - they wait for warmer temps but this is a spring-y sign. Even an unexpected late winter snow fall doesn't linger long since the earth is warming up due to longer days and stronger rays of the sun. In another month or so, the familiar honking of Canada geese flying in "V" formation will announce their seasonal arrival, taking up residence along the river banks. Their arrival, however, isn't welcomed by everyone but I digress.

As an artist and flower lover, my subject of choice is - no surprise - landscapes and flowers. Actually, capturing their images sustain me over the long layover between fall and Spring. On occasion and upon entering the imaginary world of flora and fauna with paint brush in hand, it appears that I can actually smell fields of poppies and wild flowers as they bend in the breeze. Each petal is depicted as a painted image with streams of shaded colors flowing on to the canvas surface until it flourishes into a flower. It's the same type of satisfaction derived from working the soil in the garden and carries me until the arrival of the real thing. Can't be too soon for me.

It's spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you've got it, you want - oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so! ~Mark Twain

SPRING HAS SPRUNG...tra-la tra-la

"Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today; And give us not to think so far away As the uncertain harvest; keep us here All simply in the springing of the year."
(Robert Frost)

FIRST SPRING LOOK INTO THE GARDEN

My rock garden has what started out to be multi-colored achillea millifolium a.k.a. yarrow, but for some unknown reason changed to plain, old pink flowers, in addition to achillea filipendulina a.k.a. fern leaf yarrow (yellow), bergenia cordifolia a.k.a. pig squeak, which really doesn't belong in a rock garden but I like it there because of its early-blooming pink flowers and the leaves that start out green and slowly turn pink-ish as the summer wanes, I think - not sure yet - I lost the campanula lactiflora, which had such pretty lavender-colored flowers. On the side of the rock garden that is in the shade there is hosta rectifolia that I'm using as an anchor between the rocks.

"The Amen of nature is always a flower."
(Oliver Wendell Holmes)

There is a lot of sedum planted in various areas of the rock garden when we first bought the house that I have divided over the years. One thing about this species is that it never lets you down and returns year after year. There are also (very) mature evergreen miniatures that really should be removed and replaced since they're in that not-alive-but-not-dead-either netherland state of being. I'm a very sentimental gardener.In the back flower bed against a fence I'm growing beds of rudbeckia that have taken over a large area but their pretty yellow heads with brown centres blowing in the breeze are just so...happy-looking.

"In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt."
(Margaret Atwood)

Way in the back hidden under the bough of a fir tree that my next door neighbor agrees not to trim, a white and pink gypsophila plant is growing relatively well, with some years better than others. The anemone are also flourishing and although this is a strong flower that has a tendency to take over the garden, it doesn't transplant well. On the shady side of my house I had a beautiful bed of pink dianthus flourishing there for years but for some bizarre reason, which I can't fathom for the life of me (I'm so dramatic!), they up and died, each and every one. The blue-colored Forget-me-nots will bloom in the middle of May and there is something so lovable - at least for me, anyway - about these blooms. Guess it has to do with their name.

In addition to my Iris bed on the sunny side of the house, I also have a scattering of purple coneflowers sort of hiding between the iris leaves. The effect is nice, though. Then of course we have the hollyhocks, that are supposed to be a biennial but return every year since they self-seed.

There are more but I can't remember their names right now but I'll check later on the garden sites. I mainly use two gardening books that I bought on sale at a local book outlet: "An Illustrated Guide to Garden Flowers" and "Popular Flowering Plants." Thing is that while I love the beautiful photographs, many of the species would croak in my growing zone so I really should be buying books that are specifically geared towards Canadian growing zones. One of my best gardening books...actually a soft-covered book was picked up for $1.50 at a second-hand store. Very, very basic but all-inclusive so gardeners don't have to pay a lot of money to get good advice.