Sidle up to spring
With the onset of spring, Tony Milne from Rough and Milne, reflects on the wonders of simple pleasures and asks how we might create our outdoor space this season.
Winter is giving way to spring which in turn will roll into summer. I do like the seasons, albeit I feel somewhat short-changed by winter this year. There is a romance associated with spring, although possibly lost on me. As D.H. Lawrence penned in his quintessential poem,
“The Enkindled Spring”:
This spring as it comes bursts up in bonfires green,
Wild puffing of emerald trees, and flame-filled bushes,
Thorn-blossom lifting in wreaths of smoke between
Where the wood fumes up and the watery, flickering rushes.
I am amazed at this spring, this conflagration
Of green fires lit on the soil of the earth, this blaze
Of growing, and sparks that puff in wild gyration
Faces of people streaming across my gaze.
D.H. Lawrence
I have previously written about running around Hagley Park with my mate Ruts. Certainly, no wild gyration there. At the time, our pace gave us ample opportunity to discuss the emerging snowdrops, the flowering Prunus, the disappearing frosts, the lengthening of the day (not our stride), the largesse of the bourgeois, and the fact he was battling. The latter were his words, not mine.
These days I do not run with Ruts as often as I did then, he has found F45 Training. When we do, the spring in his stride may have lessened, but the seasonal rhythm continues. I have always thought of seasonal change as being a reasonably straightforward construct. However, I have recently learned that when it comes to the end of winter and the start of spring, things are not as clear as I once thought. And that is without considering the monumentality of climate change.
As I now know, for spring, we have four different start dates to choose. If you are an observer of the astronomical calendar, you’ll do your little spring jig at the equinox. You won’t be alone, several plants burst into life around this time, as they respond to the shortening of the nights. A photoperiodism dance if you like. Not the radish though, a trooper that trudges through winter months, a ‘day neutral’ plant by all accounts.
Most of us are familiar with meteorological spring which starts on 1st September. This can be quite useful for record-keeping, whereas solar spring bounces into life in early August. Finally, we have spring as dictated by Mother Nature; it would seem our winters are relatively short and perhaps truncating by the year.
Or possibly as we get old, we start to romanticise our memories. But as I look around, lambs are appearing in paddocks, and not just because of the wanton lust of a melliferous ram or two; trees are blossoming, and the lawn is threatening growth seemingly earlier than I can remember from years past. Like Ruts, perhaps the seasonal rhythm is starting to wobble a little. Or, is it possible that Jacinda has the ear of the seasonal gods with her ‘let’s keep moving’ campaign.
So, as we welcome spring and the spirit of optimism associated with it, we start to think about once again inhabiting those exterior spaces we have coveted through our heavily condensated winter windows. Seeking apricity, we are longing to decant outside. Some would have started chitting their potatoes.
It may be a rug on the back lawn, folding deck chairs on the driveway in front of the garage, a perch on the veranda enjoying the prospect, opening the doors to your Juliet balcony, a well-appointed courtyard or a poolside deck, it does not really matter.
Sidle up to the green bonfires of spring in a space you feel comfortable in, one you want to be in, one that has a story, and most importantly, one that is you.
03 366 3268 | roughandmilne.co.nz
