A garden journal.

You know it’s a good idea. “Now when did those ‘Biokovo’ geraniums of mine bloom again?” you think. “If I had jotted it down, I would know whether or not they would flower with this Twilite Prairieblues™ baptisia I had to get.”

You resolve to keep better records next year.

All winter you are stuck inside, dreaming and making plans for the garden, flipping through plant catalogs and sketching. During this long period of banishment from any real work in the garden, you grow frustrated with your inability to remember when you sowed that spinach last year, when the wild blackcap raspberries got ripe, and what exactly bloomed when. With the determination of a new gym member in January, you vow to follow through with your journaling come spring.

The first signs of renewed activity–I won’t say “of spring,” because they start to appear even before then–show up gradually, and you relish and record every moment.  The first witchhazel flower.  Winter aconite.  Will the parrotia bloom this year?  Snowdrops.  Reticulated irises.  Pussy willows.  Red maples and forsythia.  Crocuses.

But then there comes a point, around the first of April (at least in the Lower Midwest), when all hell breaks loose.  Plants seem to grow perceptibly bigger in the space of one day.  New plants come into bloom in rapid-fire succession; the garden all of a sudden is bustling.  And there is so much to do!  Plants must be moved before it is too late, weed populations checked, early crops sown.  If you’re like most gardeners, your journal entries begin to get spotty.