Irish spring starts tomorrow with Lá Fhéile Bríde in Carlow
Spring is once more breathing life upwards from below the soil, awakening the world of flora from its slumber, though this winter was more like a cat nap than a fully fledged hibernation, with temperatures into the teens in the middle of December.
Does this time of the year remind you of the ‘heavens’ embroidered cloths enwrought with golden and silver light’?
I think of that poem every time I see the snowbells, crocus, winter aconites, and iris break the soil surface to smile at us once more and later still, the daffodils, hyacinths and tulips like the brightest of natural tapestries.
The first life we see popping up from beneath the blanket are the early flowering spring bulbs. I was moving a pot in my back garden during the week and there nestled beneath a Buxus was a natural work of art, completely forgotten by me since it finished doing its thing last year.
I say a work of art because Iris reticulata is a species loved by botanical artists who strive to capture the beauty of the petals and the most intricate markings on the throat of the flowers. It’s about seven years since I planted these Iris around the base of the Buxus and each January/February without fail, up they pop to show off their blue colour.
There was much more room in the pot when I planted them and they were to fill up the excess space with some colour, but now as planned, the Buxus has filled the pot and so after the flowers and foliage have died back in a few months, I will lift the bulbs, divide them and plant them out into the garden during late summer/ autumn.
And I shall wonder once more how the slightly shrivelled-looking root that I put into the soil can produce a flower so stunning. Is it magic that does it or another force?
I know the science and could tell you all about the roots and what they do to anchor the bulb in place and then how they take up nutrients which mix with the cells in the bulb to produce shoots and flowers — but what is it that makes the science?
If I leave that bulb out of the ground it will desiccate and die and come to nothing, but if I put it into a piece of what we call dirt, the magic happens, God, the universe, science, make up your own mind, but it creates true beauty.
I can’t remember the name of the variety I planted, I think it’s one called ‘Harmony’ and its colour is the deepest of rich dark Indigo blue — making it look nearly like velvet.
‘Katherine Hodgkin’ is another striking variety, beautiful again because of the lacework detail of the veins in its petals and the very unusual colour of the smoky grey/blue flowers but it is the richness of this navy blue form which for me lifts the spirits on the most depressing of January days. It nearly makes me feel warmer just looking on its blooms.
So too with the snowdrops, no matter what nature throws out during the winter in terms of cold, ice, wind and storms, up pop the nodding little white heads, a sure sign that we are indeed into a new year and a new spring is fast approaching.
Where better to see the natural tapestries than at one of the several Snowdrop Weeks that are organised around the country.
If you get a chance between February 9 and 15, take yourself off to Altamont Gardens or Huntington Castle — both in Carlow, for guided tours and stunning woodland walks. On February 7, in Ballykealy Manor, Ballon, there’s a chance to enjoy a Snowdrop Gala with UK experts Matt Bishop and Jim Jermyn.
Not forgetting Cork, however, where we are lucky enough that the private garden of Hester Forde in Glounthaune will be open. Do take the opportunity to admire Hester’s fabulous collection of snowdrops in a suburban-sized garden on the edge of the beautiful Cork Harbour.
Do tread carefully in these gardens as whilst you may not tread on dreams you will very easily tread on a prized posession or some treasure that is trying its best to emerge from the cold soil.
www.carlowtourism.com  and www.hesterfordegarden.com
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