After twelve days of cold, stormy weather, the sun has come out again; and it’s a day to inspect the garden. I find a little damage: one basket of orchids (I don’t know what they are, but they have small purple flowers in late winter and early spring) was blown from its moorings. It’s gotten very heavy over the years, as one small plant morphed into quite a mass of foliage; and the storm winds exerted enough force on it to pull its wire hook straight and send it and its resident ant colony plummeting into the plants below.

It has a younger clone in another hanging basket, where it was protected from the winds, but not from the scrub jays,. They have ripped out almost all of the wire basket’s coconut fiber lining—I suppose for nest material. What’s left is some bedraggled little plants hanging on for dear life among the remnants and a lot of orchid bark littering the ground below—one of many things to tend to now that the weather favors getting into the garden again!

Of course, the weeds have also taken advantage of the weeder’s cowardly retreat during the storms. On the whole, however, the garden seems to be showing nothing but enthusiastic gratitude. The wisteria flowers are just emerging, even as the elegant blossoms of the quince tree are fading. But bulbs are providing the primary show. There are little species tulips in yellow, orange, and red. There are red freesias. There are ranunculus in reds, pinks, and yellows.

And one of our winter pleasures continues into spring. White cyclamens that came to us as Christmas plants over the years have found homes to their liking, a larger-flowered one in a back corner, but visible from the house, and three tiny ones in the shade of the garden bench.

Our garden’s guage this season (starting from September) has measured about 28″ of rain—a good sum even for a whole rainy season, though we still hope for more after years of drought. The surprising thing is how quickly the plants have responded. The most extreme example is the octopus agave, the last of a group that we planted here soon after we

moved, probably in 1999. It has decided that its time has come and is throwing its all into reproducing this year. In less than five weeks, its flower stalk has reached as high as our second-floor windows. I expect it will grow a little taller before it wraps itself in a spiral of yellow flowers.

Since I am far from the really capable sort of gardener who can actually predict results, I get the benefit of experiencing every spring’s successes as a kind of marvel. “Oh, hey, it actually worked!” Although I would like to feel more competent, I’m not sure I want to give up that element of surprise.