Late winter in the deep south doesn’t last long, but it does try our patience. We long for the coming spring when it is safe to plant our gardens and replace the brown colors of winter with colors of spring. But it always seems to take forever until the spring greening happens, in what seems like an instant. One day the world is dreary, the next it is covered in every shade of green and other colors of the rainbow.
I personally like the colors of our winter landscapes, with the rich browns of broom sedge and American Beech, that hang on to their leaves until the new ones emerge in early spring. Leaves on our trees hang on into December and, in some years, January. Then comes the annual dropping of Live Oak leaves in mid-March.
Anxious gardeners can’t wait to plant those first set of tomatoes – too early in late February, hoping that a cold snap will not come around this year. It usually does, forcing them to buy that second set of plants. I am convinced that the growers plan on selling two sets of tomatoes every year. So, we spend the month of February and early part of March waiting to see how many more cold fronts will come, so we can get on with our gardens and flower beds.
And then it happens. In a blink of an eye, the spring greening arrives. Every tree, bush, vine, and herb springs forth with new growth, many with flowers of every color and hue. The dreary brown landscape that we see driving through our neighborhoods becomes a pallet of colors. Time to plant that garden, rework the flower beds, and add new plants to the yard.
And although the bright colors of azaleas, and the many roadside wildflowers dominate our views, it is the greens of our plants that put on a show this time of year, if we take a closer look. The color green is the real star, ranging widely in shades and hue. This annual show is as spectacular as changes that come in fall.
Part of the show clearly is the freshness of the colors of the newly emerged and perfectly formed leaves. From the swollen buds that appear in late February and early March, bright green leaves unfold within a few days. We often do not even notice until it hits us on a bright sunny day in late March.
So, let me speak for the color green, a color that should be appreciated as much as any other. The green pigments in our plants are, after all, crucial to photosynthesis, the process by which plants transform carbon from our atmosphere, nutrients from our soils, and water to produce the sugars and starches that form the flowers we often prefer to celebrate. Let’s add the color green to our celebration of spring.
We may not have the most dramatic fall colors in the deep south, but we do have some of the best show of green in spring. Take the time to walk through your landscape and take in the rich shades of green that comes this time of year. Thanks to my friend Al Eldridge for the topic of this story.
Hope to see you in our great outdoors!
