In Florida we tend to take spring for granted. We don’t experience the dull, brown days of winter those further north endure for months on end. Bulb based flowers, such as tulips and daffodils, which are such hallmarks of spring, don’t flourish here. Most years, the only signs of spring are a handful of trees that shed their leaves for a few weeks in late January and start budding out new growth in late February. While we have experienced more winter and spring-like weather this year, I decided I wanted to experience a taste of real spring, so I spent a week in March at my family’s home in North Carolina.
The white blossoms of the Dogwood and Bradford Pear trees drew my attention right away, a blaze of color in a landscape that still had a lot of brown waiting to awaken. I didn’t have many plans for this trip, other than enjoy the scenery and work on some editing. I spent nearly an hour my first full day, just walking around the yard, enjoying the daffodils, hyacinths, mini-grape hyacinths, and sacred heart blooms, and marveling at the various stages of growth the ofnumerous peonies. Did you know that the older the peonies plant is, the faster it grows? Some were already close to a foot tall while others were just inches out of the ground.
I arrived late on Friday, and my mom was excited to tell me about a new place where we could go pick our own tulips. We stopped by on Sunday but couldn’t tell if they were open. On Monday went back and this time saw the sign saying that they are closed on Sunday and Monday. Finally, on Tuesday, after a failed attempt to check out a new restaurant, we made it to the tulip farm.
The land was terraced with rows of tulips as well as beds of hyacinths. Some of the rows were marked off for a local resort, but there were still plenty for me to choose from. There were a couple of variations I’ve never seen before and I probably spent more time taking pictures than actually cutting flowers.
The woman who owns the place was lovely and we had a nice chat while we wrapped up my purchase. Turns out she is from Florida, too. I found myself feeling a bit envious of her second home’s bountiful beauty. With threatening clouds on the horizon, mom and I took my cheerful bouquet home and I set about editing a few chapters in my “work in progress” waiting for the storm to move in.