28 MY GROWING GARDEN 



looser, and seemingly riper. They are ready as 

 well for the impending event — the whole joyous 

 resurrection that makes a northern spring some- 

 thing so luxuriant, so sweet, that the visitor from 

 a supposedly more flowerful chme, like California 

 or Florida, exclaims in astonishment. 



But it is not yet spring — ^it is March, in this 

 latitude the least genial, the least pleasing, the 

 most capricious month of all the year. Usually 

 nothing can be done in the ground during the first 

 three weeks of this windy twelfth of the calendar, 

 save to sometimes look over and stake out the 

 garden. Indeed, any time the month and nature 

 may combine to tell me that winter is not over and 

 gone. One day of a later March than the first at 

 Breeze Hill, after a light snowfall, there came a rain 

 that froze around every limb and twig, and that 

 in particular showed me how exquisitely beautiful 

 the Thunberg barberry hedge can become when it 

 blooms in crystal. This hedge, by the way, is the 

 finest year-round thing on the place, for it is never 

 lacking in interest. This frozen sleet has also em- 

 phasized the dainty structure of that fine linden 

 along the axis walk. 



There is, however, plenty to do, despite the 

 snow and sleet, while the ground remains so 

 frozen as to bear a wagon. The substance that is 



