The First Spring Colors

March…came in like a lion, went out like a lion. No, a lamb. No, a lion. But finally, producing warm, balmy air. The first touch of spring.
With the first colors of spring.

Red from uncurling buds on maple trees. The blur of willows resembling Monet paintings. Green from snowdrop and crocus sprouts.

And the bright yellow of forsythia. Regardless of solstice and calendar, when those rows of bushes burst into bright yellow, spring is official.

One of the earliest shrubs to bloom, these springtime announcers originated in eastern Asia and were brought to the U.S. and Canada in 1842 by Robert Fortune, named for Scottish horticulturist William Forsyth. Each variety of the species is part of the olive tree family (Oleaceae), growing three to ten feet, two feet every year.

Sometimes they bloom so early, winter hasn’t let go. It’s believed in parts of the Midwest that there will be “three snows after the forsythia bloom.”

Oh, we hope not.

I remember Grandma’s forsythia lining her sidewalk on Scottwood in Pontiac. By summer they formed a barrier with tiny leaves, but early spring were bushes of gold flowers, leaf buds still waiting to open. The red oak along her driveway is still there, taller and thicker than in my childhood days, but the forsythia is long gone.

Springtime means trading heavy winter coats for spring jackets, leaving hats and gloves behind, watching tree buds open more daily.

The best trilliums bloomed in wooded sections along Adams Road, but of course that was in the “olden days” of my younger years when Adams was a narrow, winding scenic route.

At Cranbrook Gardens, anytime from early spring on, Daffodil Hill is covered by flowers I associate with Easter. (In 2015, volunteers planted 2,000 bulbs which have since doubled—a stunning sight on the otherwise grassy hill.)

Strips of garden plots along neighborhood houses display bulb sprouts which shoot up to announce the end of winter. Courting robins send out lilting melodies. Spring peepers trill from the Second Woods in a constant piercing symphony.

Only someone who has struggled with a long, cold, hard winter can appreciate the subtle signs of spring. And celebrate every new green, tiny blossoms, mild days.

In a blink, lilacs bloom and dandelions cover lawns. Lawn mowers appear from sheds. Birds hatch eggs and fill mornings with song. Gardens show off tulips and irises, and ferns unfurl. Cherry and apple blossoms draw honeybees.

In the first bloom of spring, every mild day and uncurling bud is cause for reveling because winter is over…or so we hope.

And I’m walking home from Auburn Heights Elementary, Valentine cards in the past, spring break and Easter ahead. My winter coat will be packed away for a younger sister or neighbor. Boots relegated to the basement. (Hope Easter Sunday won’t be too cold for our new clothes and shoes.) Robins serenade me home. All signs of snow are gone and garden plots are sprouting. Dad's replacing storm windows with screens.

Those days, those moments bring back the joy of early spring with every whiff of mild, moist air, or sign of iris flowers, new grass, nesting birds.

Once the forsythia blooms, late spring to early summer are a blink away. Even a sugar snow can’t stop the spring season.

Solomon had it right—“For lo, the winter is past…the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come…”

Welcome, spring, to this year and from every childhood memory. I’m off to find pussy willows to sprout on a window ledge.