Don’t misquote the Bard; plant primroses instead

February 2012

“Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.”

The opening lines from William Shakespeare’s “King Richard the Third” might seem fitting as a gardener’s lament in the greyness of late February in north Idaho. Actually, though, Richard, the future king, is celebrating his brother Edward’s yanking of the crown from Henry VI.If Shakespeare had been less prosaic, he might have written: “The winter of our discontent is now made glorious summer by this sun of York,” the victory of Richard’s family, the House of York, over the House of Lancaster.

Richard does go on, quite soon, to complain about Edward’s carousing ways and his own physical afflictions. Unless we, too, have visions of a brief summer of triumph, involving scheming, treachery and murder, and ending in tragedy, these dramatic lines have little connection to our wish to see the sun again. So we impetuous, impatient gardeners,who want to whine in a more erudite way, will be bumbling down the wrong path if we try to rely on the Bard of Avon here. (Anyway, as one literary critic noted,“Richard's string of metaphors runs adrift when he begins talking about burying clouds in the ocean.”)

Instead of quoting Shakespeare out of context, I suggest planting primroses. While grocery shopping recently,I passed a display of these early spring favorites,flowering in deep red, yellow, purple, and magenta,and put eight plants into my shopping cart.

A waist-high brick planter is part of the design of our front porch. Last fall I planted Lenten roses (hellebores) and winter pansies there. The Lenten roses are showing flower buds just in time for their namesake season, but the pansies have struggled through our quixotic weather. The planter needed bright splashes of color, so I’ve added primroses to the brick garden. When we lived in the Seattle area,my primroses were hardy perennials and often bloomed as the first flowers of spring in my garden. I haven’t seen them in many gardens here, so am hoping the ones I bought will be happy in the partial protection of our porch.

There is visible reason to know that spring is coming, despite the lingering effects of the snows and rains. In the gardens at our house, the heritage lilacs have begun to bud. And every day, when I walk around our backyard, cleaning up after my four-footed garden staff, I find new green shoots in the perennials beds that I planted last summer and fall. I stand, bundled in my winter fleece and gloves, and look down at the bare, slender stalks of newly returning hollyhocks, snapdragons, and Canterbury bells. They are growing, naked to the chill wind off the nearby prairie and the snow that still threatens.

Roses planted here more than fifty years ago have survived the wildest of Moscow winters. I know they will bloom again, with deep purple-red petals. Peonies, whose roots lie shallow in our gardens, have defied the cold for decades. They will be ready to flaunt their fancy skirts again this summer. So I will practice patience – a virtue I admire in others and find too deeply buried in myself – and wait for spring. Meanwhile, I’ll be grateful to look out our living room window, onto the porch, and see the Lenten roses and the primroses blooming. Then maybe I will brew a cup of tea and read a bit of Shakespeare.