Plenty of sunshine and flowers welcome start of new season
Cherry blossoms herald the start of spring. The warm, sunny weather is expected to continue through Thursday. Kathy Morrison
It’s official (as of tonight): It’s finally spring.
The new season officially arrives at 8:06 p.m. Tuesday, March 19. That’s when the Earth’s axis is tipped just right so night and day in the Northern Hemisphere are (nearly) equal in length. The first day of spring is an equinox, which means “equal night” in Latin.
The spring equinox can fall anywhere between March 19 and 21. (The fall equinox hits somewhere between Sept. 21 and 24 each year. In 2024, it hits its mark at 5:43 a.m. Sept. 22.)
In many cultures, spring represents renewal and rebirth, and this first day is celebrated with festivals and ceremonies, often incorporating eggs, flowers and sunshine.
According to folklore, eggs can be balanced on end during the equinox. (Actually, eggs – with a little practice – can be balanced on any day.) Bosnia celebrates the first day of spring with “the festival of scrambled eggs.”
In the U.S., we roll out the eggs for Easter celebrations. Marking the resurrection of Jesus Christ, Easter falls on the first Sunday following the full moon after the equinox. (That’s March 31 this year.) Dyeing and hiding “Easter eggs” are spring traditions dating back long before Christ.
Pagans celebrated the start of spring with lots of eggs and the festival of Eostre, the goddess of fertility and spring. Her spirit animal was a rabbit (another symbol of fertility). Over the millennia, Eostre’s rabbit morphed into our Easter Bunny.
Other spring commemorations center on flowers and sunshine. In Japan, cherry blossoms herald the new season and a time of reflection. At England’s Stonehenge, crowds celebrate the sun’s rays at dawn (while following ancient Druid traditions) and sip dandelion tea to cleanse their blood. In Mexico, celebrants wearing white climb the ancient Teotihuacán Pyramid to get closer to the sun’s warmth.
In Sacramento, spring arrives with plenty of that warmth and high temperatures in the mid 70s – about 10 degrees above average for this week.
Which means the best way to celebrate the start of spring in Sacramento: Get outdoors and enjoy this weather! Your garden is waiting.
Or just take a walk. Cherry and pear trees are flowering all over town. So are more daffodils, tulips and other spring blooms.
But keep those sweaters and umbrellas handy for the weekend. According to the National Weather Service, rain is forecast Friday through Monday with below normal temperatures. Sacramento’s predicted high for Monday, March 25, is only 60 degrees – five degrees below average.
What kind of spring weather can we expect? According to the Old Farmer’s Almanac, Northern California’s long-range forecast for April and May “will be warmer and drier than normal” followed by a heat spike in early June.
For weather updates: https://www.weather.gov/sto/.
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Garden Checklist for week of Nov. 3
November still offers good weather for fall planting:
* If you haven't already, it's time to clean up the remains of summer. Pull faded annuals and vegetables. Prune dead or broken branches from trees.
* Now is the best time to plant most trees and shrubs. This gives them plenty of time for root development before spring growth. They also benefit from fall and winter rains.
* Set out cool-weather annuals such as pansies and snapdragons.
* Lettuce, cabbage and broccoli also can be planted now.
* Plant garlic and onions.
* Keep planting bulbs to spread out your spring bloom. Some possible suggestions: daffodils, crocuses, hyacinths, tulips, anemones and scillas.
* This is also a good time to seed wildflowers and plant such spring bloomers as sweet pea, sweet alyssum and bachelor buttons.
* Rake and compost leaves, but dispose of any diseased plant material. For example, if peach and nectarine trees showed signs of leaf curl this year, clean up under trees and dispose of those leaves instead of composting.
* Save dry stalks and seedpods from poppies and coneflowers for fall bouquets and holiday decorating.
* For holiday blooms indoors, plant paperwhite narcissus bulbs now. Fill a shallow bowl or dish with 2 inches of rocks or pebbles. Place bulbs in the dish with the root end nestled in the rocks. Add water until it just touches the bottom of the bulbs. Place the dish in a sunny window. Add water as needed.
* Give your azaleas, gardenias and camellias a boost with chelated iron.
* For larger blooms, pinch off some camellia buds.
* Prune non-flowering trees and shrubs while dormant.
* To help prevent leaf curl, apply a copper fungicide spray to peach and nectarine trees after they lose their leaves this month. Leaf curl, which shows up in the spring, is caused by a fungus that winters as spores on the limbs and around the tree in fallen leaves. Sprays are most effective now.
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