Equilux, equinox. Spring, anyhow.

I learned a new word. Equilux. The day when daylight and night hours are exactly equal, 12 hours each. Not exactly the equinox; that's the day when the earth's axis lines up exactly over the equator. Spring equinox this year falls day after tomorrow, the 20th, at 7:46 AM, Pacific time.

The equilux comes a little earlier, and it varies according to your location, because the sun's light bends as it passes through the earth's atmosphere, giving us a few extra minutes of daylight. Here, on the 50th parallel (latitude), yesterday we had 11 hours, 58 minutes of daylight; today, we passed the moment, and we got 12 hours, 2 minutes of daylight. So, no equilux this year. The moment passed in the middle of the night.

With our new, permanent Daylight Savings Time, dawn today was at 7:28. A dim, grey, wet dawn, but daylight, anyhow. Nice.

In the bush the other day, I saw the first sprouts of red elderberry leaves, one of our first spring bloomers.

Sambucus racemosa ssp. pubens var arborescens. The long name distinguishes our local variety; it will  have red berries; over on the mainland, away from the coast, the berries are black.

Another early spring delight. Yesterday my forsythia had yellow buds; today, they've all opened.

I found this behind the museum. Hellebore, at the end of its flowering time; it's a winter bloomer.

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Aprendí una palabra nueva. Equilux. La fecha cuando las horas de dia y de noche son iguales; 12 horas de luz, 12 de oscuridad. No cae precisamente en el equinoccio, que es el dia en que el sol se encuentra directamente sobre el equador terrestre. El equinoccio de primavera de 2026 cae pasado mañana, el 20 de marzo, a las 7:46, hora del Pacífico.

El equilux llega un poco antes del equinoccio; el dia depende del lugar, más tarde mientras más al norte, debido a que la luz se desvía al pasar por la atmósfera, dándonos unos pocos minutos más de luz.  Aquí en el paralelo de latitud, nos tocaron 11 horas con 58 minutos de dia ayer; hoy hemos pasado el momento preciso, y tuvimos 12 horas con 2 minutos diurnos. De hecho, entonces, no vimos el equilux este año;  el momento pasó a medianoche.

Con nuestro nuevo sistema de "Hora de Verano" permanente, amaneció hoy a las 7:28. Un amanecer gris, sombrío, húmedo, pero luz solar, por lo menos.

En el bosque vi los primeros brotes de las hojas de elderberry, Sambucus racemosa. Es una de las primeras de nuestras plantas nativas en florecer en la primavera.

1. Sambucus racemosa ssp. pubens var arborescens. El nombre tan largo sirve para diferenciar este arbusto de bayas rojas del otro, también nativo, pero que crece en el continente, lejos de la costa, y que produce bayas negras.
2. Otra de las plantas tempranas de primavera, la forsitia. Ayer aparecieron los primeros botones amarillos; hoy las flores están todas abiertas.
3. Estas flores, eléboros, las vi atrás del museo. Ya se están marchitando; florecen en invierno.

In a wet garden

In our gardens, it's spring. Leaves are unfolding, flowers budding or even blooming. Laurie's three-year-old leeks, that he planted hoping for leek soup, but that never grew more than a few inches, have sprouted again, for the third year. (They won't end up in soup this year, either.)

And Laurie is lying on his back in the hospital, staring at the grey sky through his window. So I took my little pocket camera and went out to take a few photos that I could then show him, back at the hospital. The minute I went outside, it started to rain. I kept going and took a few fast photos anyway.

Hellebores. Laurie's are whitish. Mine, back in the shade, are barely sprouting now. They will be deep purple.

One of Laurie's collection of ferns. With the leaves neither of us had the energy to remove in December.

Perennial bleeding hearts, just sprouting. Mine, in deep shade, are white; his will be a strong pink.

Running back to shelter across the lawn, I had to stop to look at this droplet on a branch of the linden tree. The building behind me and a tall evergreen are reflected here, upside-down.

I had to leave the camera open on the seat beside me all the way to the hospital, to let it dry out. And Laurie smiled at his little row of leeks.

Rain and mud and flowers

It's been pouring rain again, keeping the birdbath full and the pathways muddy, keeping us looking out the window at garden work to be done when and if it ever dries out. In my shade garden, winter-demolished plants are lifting their heads, putting out new, optimistic growth. The primulas are covered with flowers now, white and yellow, and all spattered with mud. Laurie's lupins, planted from seed last year,are almost six inches high already. (The ones I planted in the semi-shade barely made it through last summer; I don't expect to see them again.)

Baby lupins on the last sunny day

And after budding, being frozen back to the ground, growing and budding again, and being frozen yet again, the various hellebores have rebounded, as if that's the sort of winter they were expecting. One in the semi-sunny garden is in full bloom, even though the plant itself is short; this is its first spring.

I had to clean off some mud, of course. Quite a bit of mud, actually.

And last year Laurie kept saying he wanted a Daphne, and finally found a small one near the end of the summer. I couldn't see his point: the flowers are tiny, stiff-looking, and dwarfed by the leaves; the sap may irritate skin, and they're prone to a variety of diseases like root rot, yellowing, and leaf browning. And they should be planted in the spring, anyhow!

I've changed my mind.

Waxy flowers in a rosette of leathery leaves.

Yes, I see the brown spot. And the yellowing of the leaves. But the buds started forming while everything else was still frozen, and now they're fully open, while the other plants are barely getting started. And the flowers are high enough to be out of the mud, too!

More: reading up on these, they're supposed to be fragrant. I hadn't realized, and so I didn't bend down to take a sniff. As soon as it stops raining, I'll remedy that.

And early spring flowers!

Still testing the new 85mm lens. These photos were taken in fairly bright sunlight, from a few feet away each time, and mostly one shot only, except for the daffodils, because I was hoping to get that fly. I continue to be happy with the new addition.

White hellebore, growing in a sunny spot. Mine, in the shade, are still in the bud.

Purple-pink crocuses, in the shade.

One solitary crocus in an abandoned garden.

Daffodils against the cement wall of the new church next door. With a fly.

Cropped photo, with the fly still there. This was taken from the far side of the landscaping strip, about 2 to 3 metres away.

Heather. They've got full sun and a warm wall next door, so everything is thriving.

Oregon grape, just getting started in our semi-shade plot.

And a tall tree, which will later convert a semi-shade area to full shade. Not for a few weeks yet, though.

Now, if it would only stop raining - again! - I could take the lens down to the beach and field-test it.

Hints of spring already

This afternoon was unseasonably warm, and not even raining, so I took the chance of doing a bit of gardening, intending mostly to cut out plants that had been killed by the sudden, extreme (for here) cold spell in December. Cutting down the first one, I found new green leaves sprouting at the base. The next was better still, with flower buds forming already. And the next ...

All I had to do was clean away dead leaves and stems, and the garden is a garden again.

Hellebore bud. This one, last year, was a deep purple. It may darken as it grows.

Of the evergreen perennials, the primulas and pachysandra are already in flower; the hellebores are well on the way. The sausage vine and the bergenia which had seemed to be dying are back to normal; the salal and heather, sweet William and, of course, the London Pride, don't seem to have noticed the crazy weather. A half-dead Epimedium that I transplanted last fall seems to have been invigorated by the chill; it's better now than it ever was.

And this was completely unexpected; an Italian parsley plant that I planted as an annual, didn't protect from the cold because it was due to die anyhow, and left exposed in the coldest part of the garden, barely lost a few stems and still fills its pot, still green.

The Dutchman's breeches are poking out of the soil, and the bare twigs of the hydrangea all boast a big bud at the tip.

All this makes me happy.

A hanging pot off in a corner, where I'd planted trailing nasturtiums and lobelia, and which had housed a volunteer fringe-cup a couple of years ago, was a complete mess, a tangle of old twigs, cedar droppings, and dead, crispy stems. I cleared it all out, and found the fringe-cup coming back underneath. The usually green leaves are red, probably because of the cold.

Fuzzy stems and leaves of the fringe-cup.

A closer look at the stem. A bug would call it spiky, not merely "fuzzy".

The growing of the green*

My garden lies in deep, deep shade; at the height of summer the outer edges get sunshine for a couple of hours a day. In the winter, nothing. What sunlight does appear is reflected dimly off the tops of the tall cedars on the far side of the lawn. So as spring approaches, I watch as the sunlit area moves down and down, a few inches of cedar branches per day. When it reaches the lawn, I celebrate; suddenly the days seem brighter, the yard seems wider.

Friday, around 6:30 in the afternoon, a stray ray of sunlight fell along a strip of grass at the base of the evergreens. It stayed only a few minutes, but it's a start. So yesterday, we were out arranging hoses, checking on garden tools, cleaning up fallen leaves, checking the compost, making shopping lists: manure - chicken, mushroom and steer , slug bait, a few more plants for Laurie's newly-cleared (and mostly sunny!) patch, maybe some more hostas for my shady corner.) Gardening fever is upon us again.

In spite of the weather and the lack of sunlight, I have flowers; hellebore in full bloom, pachysandra, heather. And the new stalks of Dutchman's breeches are six inches tall, bright yellow-green and strong.

Western Bleeding Heart, leafing out. Near the roots, there's a mass of flower buds.

Hellebore in a bare garden.

This one lives in a pot in an even darker corner, so the sepals are green-tipped. Those tiny green things around the center are the petals.

Around the corner, in Laurie's new garden, the sun has been shining (when it isn't raining) for well over a week. There, he has well-established Oregon grape, rescued from under a tangled mass of long-abandoned cotoneaster last summer; it's loaded with buds already. The perennials we planted last year are looking good; pachysandra, various small evergreens, camellias, ferns, mint, a rosebush, and more. Everything is budding and stretching.

Last fall we bought these winter pansies. Half went in my shady spot, half in Laurie's semi-shaded area. Mine died under the onslaught of snow and rain; his are thriving.

Some animal broke a stalk off the white hellebore, months ago. Laurie stuck it in water at the base of an empty pot for protection. And now, it's blooming!

And wonder of wonders; the Swiss chard in the 6 by 8 foot vegetable garden, cut down in December, is sprouting new leaves!

Ah, the season of dirt and rakes, slug wars and vanquished roots, seedlings and fish fertilizer! Aching back and all, I love it!

*Title: the Irish in me coming out.

Sleepy hellebore

And me, too. I am weary tonight, drooping over my desk.

Goodnight, y'all! Beetles tomorrow!