Saugus Gardens in the Winter

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

By Laura Eisener

I guess the balmy weather we enjoyed Sunday through Tuesday made us all believe that spring will come! As the snow melts from the garden, it reveals snowdrops just beginning to bloom, and the sprouting foliage of several other early spring bulbs, such as hyacinths and daffodils. Meanwhile several bulbs that will be blooming in our gardens in mid-April to May are available in florists’ shops and markets, so we can savor their colorful blossoms now and then plant them outside in the garden when the soil warms, so they can be enjoyed for many springs afterward.

Pussy willow catkins (Salix caprea, S. discolor and others) are starting to open on shrubs in Saugus now, and several cultivars of Asian witch hazel (Hamamelis intermedia) have opened their yellow, orange or reddish blossoms.

Monday was the first day I thought it was actually comfortable to sit outside on the front porch steps. Unlike the past several weeks, there were many more people walking past, not only the dogwalkers, who often had to dodge the snow piles that are gradually receding, but others who have perhaps not taken a stroll through the neighborhood in several months. As people walk around and check out their gardens, they are seeing some spring “firsts,” not only the flowers I have mentioned but the first pollinators, including at least one honeybee.

Several birds that I had not seen all winter are making appearances, such as the group of red-winged blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus) that hovered around the Saugus River near Hamilton Street when we went out for coffee Sunday morning. They were calling to each other; the males often raise their wing feathers to show off their bright red “epaulets” and make a scratchy call. Despite its not being especially melodious, it is one of the sounds that always tells me the birds have returned from Southern U.S. states and Mexico where they winter. They head for wet areas when they return, like the Saugus River and several reservoirs. Among their favorite foods are the cattails (Typha spp.) that grow between the Hamilton Street bridge and the Saugus Iron Works, and a small grouping of these plants on Birch Pond beside Walnut Street.

A less visible sign of spring is the sap running in the trees, not only maples but birches and a few others, although we may be reminded when we see sap buckets hanging from the tree trunks, and further north, where this is serious business, the more efficient networks of plastic tubing that bring sap to the condensers. Tomorrow, Saturday, March 14, many people from surrounding towns will enjoy Breakheart Reservation’s Maple Sugarin’ event from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. This is a terrific experience for families. My husband still remembers the excitement of his first taste of sugar on snow over 60 years ago at a similar celebration which combines education with sweet flavors!

As New Englanders we are well aware that our first taste of spring is not likely to mean the real end of winter. Indeed, if temperatures stayed above freezing at night the sap producers would find the sugaring season cut very short. We can expect to rely on some of our indoor plants to keep us going until the ground really thaws enough to plant and for flowers to be blooming around every corner. Nancy Prag enjoyed the blossoms on her amaryllis this week, and I am enjoying the anticipation of an opening bud on one of mine sitting on a windowsill. Orchids, geraniums and African violets are a few other houseplants that may be flowering on windowsills right now, where they have been waiting for enough sun to blossom. The indoor gardens may include some shamrocks for St. Patrick’s Day or catnip for St. Gertrude’s Day (both March 17). And we can begin our countdown to astronomical spring, which this year is NEXT Friday, March 20.