HURRY, SPRING

We are embarking on Week III of not particularly cold (for March), but very gray and dreary weather---rain, drizzle, freezing rain, freezing drizzle, dry snow, wet snow, snow mixed with rain and drizzle, rain and drizzle mixed with snow You get the idea.  And the mud!  Oh the mud!  Maine practically depopulates from mid-March to mid-April, and with good reason.  The winter won't kill you, but the spring damn well might.

In the interest of public health, I declare this to be Garden Week at the Down East Dilettante, and in denial, will post nothing but pictures of gardens until this ends.

The Asticou Azeala Garden at Northeast Harbor is one of May's reward for the penances of April 

As are the lilacs that cloud the landscape, for an all too-brief  week at the end of the month (Damariscotta Mills)

Roadsides and sidewalks that had been covered in gravel and winter debris only weeks before come into bloom. (top to bottom: Castine, Damariscotta Mills, Wiscasset)

Along with  flowering trees and shrubs (Castine)

And then as if Winter had never happened, things start to get really serious in June, as with the iris and peonies here in my friend Ellen's garden

Wild roses  beside my back drive, ephemeral & sweet, climbing six feet through the hedgerow

 And summer goes on, and suddenly, almost without noticing the change, what looked like this in June

Looks like this by August (Thuya Gardens, Northeast Harbor, two views of central allee toward pool)

For a few weeks, the Maine climate is as conducive to gardening as any in the world.  Here, a path in the Beatrix Farrand  designed garden on the Rockefeller estate at Seal Harbor.

Hawk-weed by the side of the road (Castine)