Clancey's Gift...

...It is the proverbial "Ides of March", and here in Ohio it is a gray, lightly rainy day.  Ever so slowly we are creeping toward spring with all it's greening up and budding of new things in the yard.  It has been a rough winter here.  There is much to scrape off in the yard and a lot of cleaning up in my gardens in preparation for those soon to come warm spring days.  I am about to plant my little pots of seeds to have herbs ready for planting when the warmer nights are here.  So far it is way too cold at night for anything green and tender to survive.  We need consistent night temperatures of no lower than 45 to 48 degrees before we can transfer our indoor planting treasures to the outside conditions.  I am amazed at how much my pineapple sage plant has been blooming all winter long as it stretched toward the sunlight in my home studio.  That boost of red blossoming as well as its delicate pineapple fragrance was greatly appreciated during my winter hybernation.  And now, for the first time ever, my rosemary plants are bursting with lavender colored blossoms.  I am thrilled at the huge covering of blossoms on these plants.  In the past I have had rosemary plants produce a small quantity of blossoms, but these plants are completely covered in flowers.  Maybe ignoring them was the way to go!  The one rosemary plant had been a birthday gift from a friend.  We stumbled onto this plant in September at a small gardening store that was closing out many of their plants in anticipation of closing for the season, to re-open in the spring.  The plant was priced at a quarter of what it had sold for earlier in the summer.  It was a huge hanging basket of rosemary that took up nearly all of the backseat of my car.  When I brought this plant in for the winter I had trimmed it back to nearly half its size just to make it fit into my studio easier as I had many more plants that needed access to the one sunny area in that room.  Little did I realize that it would explode in blossoms as a result of the pruning. 
     Such are the rewards of herb gardening.  Seeing little green things popping their heads through fresh soil will bring a whole new season of gardening joy.  I'm ready for sunshine and warmer days.  So are the plants.  Bring it on!