Earth Day

Sunrise at 5:59 am. The garden is alive with avian activity. Aside from the usual grackles, red-winged blackbirds and robins, there are three kinds of sparrows - white-throated, song and field sparrows - scratching in the soil, looking for last year's crop of grass seed to eat. Under the low branches of Thuja (Arborvitae) in the Shoulder Hedge a wood thrush darts in and out of sight. A hermit thrush, migrating through the area, perches on the branch of an Cercis canadensis (Eastern Redbud).

In the Meadow, the buds of Narcissus 'Lemon Drops' (Daffodils) are nearly ready to open. A few more days of warm weather and they'll bring a creamy yellow to the garden, deeper than the 'Jenny' and 'Thalia' daffodils that are mostly white. Geum triflorum (Prairie Smoke) is about 12 inches high, but its buds have yet to open and expose the wispy stamens that give its characteristic appearance. The Dodecatheon 'Aphrodite' (Shooting Stars) won't be out for another two weeks.

Muscari armeniacum 'Superstar' (Grape Hyacinths) in the Salvia River are filling in, giving a purple hint of the deep violet swath of meadow sage that will appear in late May. Anemone blanda (Windflowers) are opening - their petals, a paler violet than the grape hyacinths, provide texture and contrast.

Two species tulips in the Light Plate should open later today - a bright yellow Tulipa aucherina and the lipstick red Tulipa wilsoniana. Both are identified by their six-inch long, curvy leaves that lie along the soil.

In the Dark Plate, the first lavender flowers of the Epimedium grandiflorum, 'Lilafee' (Longspur Barrenwort) are showing. Its young leaves are nearly the color of its flowers, making it difficult to see if one didn't know where to look. The Astilbe chinensis, 'Maggie Daley,' is showing through the mulch, beneath a newly planted Cercis canadensis (Eastern redbud).

In the next week or two, the garden will be alive with color from the nearly 120,000 bulbs that are now planted in the Lurie. I hate to miss this spectacular display, but I am off to Paris to visit friends for a week. Hopefully I will see gardens as interesting and as varied as the Lurie while I am away.