What's your favorite Season

Week 4 - Favorite Season

Growing up in Phoenix there are basically 2 seasons, warm and hot.  On a rare occasion we might have had frost, but we never had to worry about ice or snow.  The ranch (located on the back side of South Mountain) was only a mile away from our house, but it was at a slightly higher elevation.  Occasionally they would have snowflakes, but never enough snow to stick.  Once when I was in grade school we woke up one morning and didn't have water - the pipes had frozen. Dad went out to the well and built a fire to get the water flowing again.  

Mom and Dad would talk about the year it snowed in Phoenix - it was about 1937. When I got interested in Family history, I started collecting old family photos.  And sure enough, there were a bunch of photos of Dad's family playing in the snow.

So until I was stationed at Ft. Meade, Maryland, I had never experienced 4 seasons.  I arrived in Ft. Meade in September 1974. Within a few months Maryland had the most spectacular fall color that I have ever experienced.  The colors were spectacular - lots of gorgeous red and orange leaves. One weekend Bruce and I went out and took a bunch of pictures - unfortunately I don't have any of them.  

Then came winter; the first snow fell in the early morning hours of December 19th.  Bruce and I had made arrangements to get married at the court house in Annapolis and I was worried that the dusting of snow might prevent the "big" event.  The snow didn't stick and neither did the marriage.

One Saturday later that same winter, I went down to get the mail and got locked out of our apartment. I was in bare feet and Bruce was at work. It was in the days before cell phones which probably wouldn't matter since I hardly ever carry my cell phone.  So I knocked on one of my neighbor's doors who I hadn't previously met.  He let me in to wait in the warmth for Bruce's return.  Needless to say, I'm not fond of winter.

The two winters I spent in Maryland were warm. Although we had a few days of snow, we never needed snow tires or chains.  The winter after my discharge was quite cold; Washington DC had several feet of snow.  I heard they were ice skating on the mall. I'm not sorry to have missed it.

Finally Spring made her appearance. The trees budded out and the tulips and daffodils bloomed.  In Arizona, it is too hot for tulips - if you are lucky you might get daffodils or Dutch iris to bloom. But I love tulips with their bright colored petals. This is the only place I lived that the tulips would grow. Then the snowball bush bloomed. I had never seen a bush so covered with huge blossoms.  They made quite an impression on me.  If I didn't have to deal with the cold, I could love a brisk spring day.

Ft. Meade summers are not worth remembering. Coming from the West, I was used to blue, blue skies. In Maryland, it seemed like the sky was always gray. The only good thing about the summer in Fort Meade was the Fourth of July fireworks celebration.  We went to the fireworks on base during the summer of 75.  When the summer of 76 came, it was the bi-centennial so we decided to go to the fireworks down on the mall in DC.  At four pm the line for the bathrooms was about 30 minutes.  The line for food and drinks were ridiculous.  We finally decided to go home and watch the celebration on the TV.  We heard later that many of the attendees were stuck in the DC traffic until the wee hours of the morning.  I'm not sure whether I'm sorry to have missed the celebration or glad I wasn't stuck in the traffic for hours.

Now that I live in Ocala, spring is my favorite season.  When I walk Foxy about the neighborhood, I look forward to seeing the signs of spring.  The first sign is the Saucer Magnolia tree with its pink tulip-like blooms.  Other early bloomers are the dogwood trees with their white blossoms, and the red bud trees. One of my neighbors has a peach tree in her yard that sports pale pink blossoms.  Soon honeysuckle and jasmine blossoms perfume the air. And let's not forget the fragrant orange blossoms (although in Ocala they are mostly grapefruit trees).  

In my yard the earliest bloomers are the Camellia bushes - we several varieties with white, red and pink flowers. Next come the azalea - we have a ton of azaleas which bloom in shades of white, red, coral, and fuchsias. The red ruffles are rebloomers - although their main bloom is in the spring, they will begin blooming in the fall and continue until spring unless we get a hard freeze. 

Since I can't grow tulips, I have planted amaryllis bulbs - the Amaryllis are to Ocala what the Tulips are to Maryland - bright spots of color that signal the end of winter.   Not long after I moved to Ocala, one of my coworkers brought in some amaryllis bulbs.  I took some home and planted them in my yard they bloom early in the season.  A few years later, my sister-in-law Patricia Ryan gave me a showy red amaryllis bulb for Christmas.  After it finished blooming, I planted it in my garden. That one bulb has reproduced nicely and produce a much larger showier flower. 

I also have planted daylilies - Black Eyed Stellas with their gold petals and darker throat, Pardon Me's with the ruby red petals and yellow throat. I also have some wild daylilies that are tall and yellow. I really like the daylilies, they are low maintenance and produce a much longer bloom than the amaryllis bulbs.

My very favorite flowers are irises.  I have tried to grow them here in Florida without much success.  I tried Dutch iris, bearded iris, Japanese iris, Louisiana Iris and I finally gave up.  Then last year I went to one of the plant sales put on by the local master gardeners that was selling native plants.  I bought two plants in the Iris family a blue flag iris and an orange crocosmia.  Both have bloomed and are growing like weeds in my garden.  I dug up all the crocosmia from my front yard and moved them to the back.  Imagine my surprise when I had a large bloom of orange flowers coming up where I thought I had dug them all up.  I later read they tend to be a bit invasive.  

Finally about May, the Crape Myrtles begin to bloom signaling that spring has sprung and summer with its sweltering heat has arrived.