For the first time in weeks, some patches of bare ground are visible. Everything is water and mud and as always when this happens, I�ve got an endless chorus of e.e. cummings running through my head (not, perhaps, particularly creative of me, but very apt and tasty words):

in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious �

�when the world is puddle-wonderful

Mud will be governing my life for the next few months as I begin to put to rights the havoc winter has wreaked upon my garden. From March to May the garden is nearly a full time job. Previous inhabitants of our house clearly spent a lot of time and money on this garden at one time, but the person who lived here for the several years prior to us clearly had done nothing but mow the lawn.

As The Secret Garden was one of my childhood favorites, I found this state of affairs a delight. The first spring we were here was magical, flowers poking up from all corners unexpectedly � we had purchased the house in mid-winter, and didn�t have any idea what to expect. Crocuses, masses of daffodils and bluebells in the woods, tulips (those that the bunnies and deer didn�t eat), hydrangea, lilacs, roses, foxglove, hostas, wild maidenhair and fiddlehead ferns, spirea, sedum�the list goes on and on, colorful and fragrant. Something is blooming almost everywhere you look from March until October. Last year, our second spring, I started some planting of my own, filling in holes left by years of neglect. I also created a small bed in the one purely sunny spot and was ridiculously pleased by the results, as were the hummingbirds and butterflies, who flocked to that corner in abundance. This year I�ll be building a new bed to run the length of the stream in the back yard. I need to fill it with tall flowering things and sturdy prairie grasses that can be seen from the front of the house. The yard slopes down to the stream, so this will be a challenge. Another challenge will be finding things the deer don�t like to eat (we refer to hosta as �deer candy� in this part of the world, although the hostas are so hardy, that they can survive all but the most voracious of herbivores), for the stream is also the major deer thoroughfare, providing clear ground for their rapid escape into forested corners.

The garden is a family affair, but there is a clear division of labor. My husband is in charge of the lawn, the pruning of small trees, and the hiring of professionals to prune the larger ones. I am in charge of all flower beds and small shrubs. AJ has his own set of garden tools, provided primarily by my mother, herself an avid gardener. He trots around after me in the yard digging holes and filling them up again. Last year we filled a row of window boxes with seeds -- snow peas, cherry tomatoes, jalape�os and arugula � and placed them on the balcony outside his bedroom window. Every day we checked them and watered them. AJ loved spotting the vegetables as they grew and loved eating peas right off the vine, spitting the ends out into his hand and tossing them to the ground below. I�m hoping to give him his own corner of the new bed to plant. At the bottom of the yard, there is a large, flat rock next to a larch overlooking the stream. It is shady and cool and AJ loves to sit there and watch the water burbling by. I think that will be the perfect spot for some shade-loving kid-friendly plants.

I love reading garden catalogs. Running over the very names of the plants feels like an incantation of spring. It also reminds me that I will soon be up to my elbows in mud-lusciousness. Time for some new boots.

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