Saugus Gardens in the Spring

Here’s what’s blooming in town this week to make your walks more enjoyable

  Temperatures are rising and buds are swelling, and spring swings into full flower. Daffodils continue to open all around town, including yellow and white ones in the woods. In addition to the traditional all yellow varieties, there are several daffodil varieties that have a white perianth framing the yellow trumpet shaped fused petals.

  Spring bulbs in pots and many other flowers will likely be filling Easter baskets this weekend. In addition to Easter, Passover, Ramadan and other religious observances taking place this week, April is Earth Month, and nature will be giving us some good reasons to celebrate. Many of the hardy bulb flowers like daffodils, crocus, snowdrops, hyacinths, small species tulips and a few others are very well adapted to surviving dry summers. Bulbs will multiply over time so the garden becomes more floriferous every year with minimal maintenance.

  Once they have bloomed, the leaves usually remain green for another month and gather energy to make new flowers, which is stored in the bulb until next spring. The best way to ensure that potted bulbs last from year to year is to plant them in the ground in a suitable location and let nature take care of them. Once the leaves go dormant, the bulbs don’t need to be watered and, in fact, overwatering is often a cause of bulb failure. Tulips and crocuses are also susceptible to being eaten by a variety of animals, but daffodils, hyacinths and snowdrops are much less appetizing to most animals and will not need to be protected by fences or repellants.

  A pair of house sparrows (Passer domesticus) has chosen my new birdhouse as their happy home, and each morning I look out to see them bringing twigs and bits of dried grasses through the doorway to make their nest. One of them spends quite a bit of the day inside the birdhouse, frequently looking out through the round door, while its mate waits on a nearby branch with the next bit of home decor. They join other birds at the feeders from time to time throughout the day as well and then return. House sparrows are very social and lively. They are not native to North America but have made themselves quite at home and have become the most common birds in suburban areas.

  Books in Bloom is coming up at the library next weekend, so many town residents are busy trying to finish reading their books, or dreaming about what flowers and foliage will complement their chosen literature, in order to have it all ready for next Friday. It is always a fun and colorful time to visit the library.

  One of my fond memories of early spring is going over to the garden center on Lincoln Avenue to choose pansies with my best friend or with my family. In those days some garden centers planted pansies directly in the ground in fall and covered them with salt marsh hay through the winter. Then in the spring the rows of pansies would peek out through the hay, and we would be sent out with a trowel to choose and dig our own! I think it may have been Sim’s Garden center back then, over 50 years ago, and it has gone through a few changes of hands since. Now the same familiar location is Little Brook Garden Center, and while it no longer offers dig-your-own pansies (very few places in New England still do that) the selection of pansies and violas is still spectacular.

  Colorful pansies are the less shy cousins of violets, and many of the most popular hybrids would more accurately be described as violas, since the genus Viola includes several different species in addition to the common pansy (Viola wittrockiana). The popular small ‘Sorbet’ series violas, which look like miniature pansies, are available in a wide range of color combinations, including orange and purple, lilac-blue and white, yellow and purple, to mention just a few examples. They are often classified as tufted pansies or horned violets (Viola cornuta), which are native to the Pyrenees. It is very similar to the heartsease or Johnny-jump-up (Viola tricolor), another common European species. In addition to making a colorful, if short-lived, addition to the garden, viola flowers are edible and can be added to salads or desserts.

  Editor’s Note: Laura Eisener is a landscape design consultant who helps homeowners with landscape design, plant selection and placement of trees and shrubs, as well as perennials. She is a member of the Saugus Garden Club and offered to write a series of articles about “what’s blooming in town” shortly after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. She was inspired after seeing so many people taking up walking.