Spring report from Oslo

It seems as if spring is finally here. Dare we hope? Each time that we've had a few consecutive days of nice warm weather, it's been followed by the return of winter's cold, as was the case for the past week. I read the weather forecasts religiously now, because having a garden makes one more attentive to the weather (and lack of good weather). My fellow gardeners and I share our frustrations about the lousy spring we've had so far; the only spring flowers that have bloomed are the snowdrops, crocuses and violets, and they didn't bloom until mid-April. The tulips are in wait modus, and even the forsythia has not bloomed. The one plant that has grown and will bloom soon is the Helleborus Snow Rose, which has lovely flowers as I remember. The grass lawn is another story. A thick layer of snow topped by ice covered the garden until mid-April, compacting the grass to the point where I am unsure if it will grow back during this season. Time will tell. I am prepared to reseed the small area of lawn that I have in my garden. 

It's pointless to be irritated at a season, I know, but I have been so irritated that winter just keeps hanging on. It won't let go this year. Weather is the main topic of conversation in the garden; questions arise about global warming. We are worried that the growing season will be too short this year. The joke is that we'd love for there to be more global warming in Oslo so that we had shorter winters and longer summers. The reality of course is that global warming will lead to cooling in some parts of the world due to the changes in weather patterns caused by the melting of the polar ice caps. Who knows where it will all lead or end? As one of my friends in the garden says, we can talk about all the problems in the world, and there are a lot of them, but in the end, she looks forward to going home to google 'how to prune a rose bush'. That's her way of relaxing. Mine is similar; I love looking at online garden catalogs and some of the ones that arrive in the mail. I love going into garden stores to wander around. Sometimes I have specific plans about what to buy, other times no. And I do google a lot of garden-related issues; right now I'm reading about how to aerate a lawn and how important it is to do that.  

Today is one of those lovely sunny days in Oslo that foretell the imminent arrival of summer. But again, I, like the tulips, am in a wait-and-see modus. In some parts of the country south of Oslo, where there are often two growing seasons for the farmers (e.g. grains), it snowed yesterday. Luckily it didn't snow in Oslo, it only rained. The garden needs water, so I won't complain. But it seems odd to me that I leave the garden after a few hours work, come home and make myself a cup of hot chocolate--a winter drink if ever there was one. I worked for two hours cleaning and cleaning out the greenhouse yesterday, throwing away old baskets and plant containers, since it was too chilly to do anything else. I noticed that there is a different type of spider that has taken up residence in the greenhouse; these spiders look like tiny brown crabs scuttling across the floor of the greenhouse when they scurry for cover. There are not a lot of them. The usual spiders are the larger white ones with spindly legs that remind me of daddy-longlegs; they run away at the slightest sign of trouble. There are also the pill bugs that spend most of their time hiding; you find them in the compost bin if you turn the contents, but also under watering cans and the like in the greenhouse. They eat decaying plant matter, which is a good thing. I've also begun to turn the earth in the planting beds; there are a lot of big earthworms this year. During the few warm days we've had, the bumblebees and honeybees were out foraging for pollen. The insects are doing their jobs, and the garden underground is teeming with life. The garden is just waiting for the 'go' signal so that the plants can bloom and do their jobs.