Everything coming up roses

Local columnist

link Helena Rodriguez

April showers bring May flowers. But that’s not the only reason I’m planting my petunias this week. My friend, Josie DeLeon, told me recently that she waits until after Easter to do her spring planting.

“That is something that my dad (Transito Rodriguez) always believed in. That everything awakens after Lent,” Josie told me.

This made sense to me. Easter is a time of resurrection and new life. I had always heard the rules of the fashion police: “Don’t wear white after Labor Day,” and “No white until Easter.”

Sounds a bit snobbish, unless you look at it from a spiritual standpoint.

There is something enlivening about Easter time, which does not end after the chocolate bunnies have melted. Easter lasts until Pentecost Sunday, which is 50 days after the resurrection. And so, as a first-time gardener who is ecstatic to have my own little flower garden to maintain this spring, I am embracing this beautiful tradition of no planting until Easter.

When I moved into my cute brick townhouse last July, my landlord and her son had already planted two beds of vibrantly colored flowers. My brown-thumb soon turned a tannish-yellow but hopefully is now turning a little green.

As I watched these rainbows of colors shrivel up when winter came, I was afraid I had done something, or had not done something, and killed them. However, Josie informed me that petunias are “annuals” and have to be replanted every year.

My landlord and her son also planted two rosebushes but the roses didn’t bloom last summer. And so after we got our back yard mowed recently and I was watering a mostly empty flower bed, my son-in-law Nino asked me why I was watering dirt. I reminded him about the rose bushes. Someone told me they will bloom the second year. As I closely inspected the rose bushes, I was overjoyed to see miniature buds appearing.

I have a warm feeling everything will be coming up roses this spring, and not just gardenwise. This seems to be a ripe season for fulfilled dreams and answered prayers, too.

Helena Rodriguez is a Portales native. Contact her at:

Helena-Rodriguez

@hotmail.com