Someone gave me a foot-tall pile of garden gloves for Christmas.
As the rubbery rainbow sat on a table at home waiting for the slow retreat of winter, I tried to think of them as a reminder that dirt under my nails projects a less-than professional image, rather than as confirmation that my hands look a decade older than the rest of me.
I’m bad about wearing gloves in the garden. I tell myself they make it difficult to feel the difference between a daylily sprout and a run of quack grass.
But as the winter-kill reports started flowing in from other gardens, I was glad for them. The casualty count from the November flash freeze is high: an espaliered apple tree that had been groomed to gorgeousness for a coming garden tour; a pair of seed-grown peach trees; roses planted for friendship and in tribute.
I suspected there was trouble in my own yard. An old Italian plum that should by now be offering at least hints of a snowy canopy looks sullen and charcoal-gray. The crab apple that is typically blushing sunrise pink has only a few sketchy blossoms.
The roses seem to be the worst of the wounded. I shoved my gloved hands into thick layers of leaf mulch protecting looking for a hint of new growth. But nothing is sprouting. My luck was better at the base of a pale coral rambler: One green stem bursts with leaves.
I’ll be patient and wait to dig up the dangerous dry canes and roots, just in case. And I’ll try to keep faith, because behind the dead mountain elm that a friend planted to change her street view, I can see a tender magnolia, blooming where it should not grow.
Dana Coffield: dcoffield@denverpost.com, 303-954-1954 or twitter.com/denpostdana
