To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; 

– Ecclesiastes 3

COVID-19  deaths have spiked to a new time high as I write this.  There is so much loss and sadness from this Pandemic. Yet Spring is is time of new birth, renewal and planting. The local nurseries are listed as essential businesses and will be open with garden plants that provide food for both the body and the soul.

A late winter snow storm collapsed a greenhouse at Amazing Flower Farm in New Ipswich.  This was “a time to build up”. The employees donned masks and dragged a new polyethylene sheeting over the newly constructed framing.

Amazing Flower Farm will have a “rolling opening” in April so that people can maintain physical distancing. They will have plants available which are currently stored in one of their undamaged greenhouses.

Spring has sprung in my own garden. There are signs of life everywhere. It is a hopeful sign in a time of death and disease. 

In my garden one of the strangest sight are the emerging flower buds of the Japanese Butterbur (Petasites japonicus).  This is one of the plants I acquired years ago at the New Ipswich Children’s Fair. It is invasive as can be but I don’t care because it is so strange.

The other Hellebores have been flowering as well as an invasive Scilla which I believe is called “Glory-Of-The-Snow”.

Mitigation

Spend time ALONE in the garden, Grow plants, not the virus. Live in an apartment? Sprout a carrot top or avocado pit. Wash your hands, practice physical distancing, wear a mask when you have to go out, but don’t throw it on the ground or leave it in a grocery cart. I want you healthy so you can read my blog and I want to be healthy so I can write it.