On this grey, rainy, end of Winter day in March...I'm sitting at my desk looking out the bay windows that face the front property. I notice the ground is moving...under the newly grown green of the fresh virgin grass and wild flowers that are always the first to pop their heads up--the brown earth seems to be alive, like a dog with itchy skin....I don my binoculars for a closer look.

There are dozens of varieties of finches, wrens, towhees, titmouse, flycatcher, kinglets, chickadee, shrike,  3 types of woodpeckers, blue jays galore, mockingbirds, cardinals, a family of squirrels...a bunny or two. 

I have a winged wonderland that even the dogs stop and watch in silent amazement...

They are busy busy busy...eating everything in sight, from what the trees have to offer to what I have managed to scrape together in the form of a variety of feeders for seed and suet. We fell upon this smorgasbord quite by accident, but I have learned from nature, just what everyone's tastes are....

So I plot a plan in my head to expand on what nature has provided.....the Popcorn tree for one -  what we grew up calling it - other wise known as Sapium sebiferum, the Chinese Tallow Tree.  To plan for this tree takes an eye for the future...it's very invasive and grows from runners as well as the dropped seeds, yet when controlled, it's a joy to have mixed in with your garden and landscaping. The summer brings an umbrella of green shelter, autumn a blaze of burgundy red, spring the tendrils of fragrant sweetness.   But it is now, at winters end that we see the tree in a skeletal version filled with clusters of seeds that resemble those sweet popcorn balls of my childhood. 

Much to the pleasure of these birds I'm watching now. The popcorn tree is absolutely considered a noxious weed by everyone BUT the birds. I have found ways to incorporate it into many of my gardens. It's easy to shape and stunt for a large Bonsai type of tree in a smaller garden...

It makes a great canopy in the heat of summer.  In spring, use caution and plenty of allergy spray...the flowering fingers that sprout, shoot out dust just like pines do. This tree, in me, has inspired a play ground.

Cut down those honey suckle vines, or trim up those grape vines to transplant or ready for new growth. With the cuttings, freshen up or make new wreaths. You can also bring them indoors to add new life to an old curtain rod, hang to drape over the bathroom mirror or kitchen window. Vines have a multitude of uses!!!! Experiment!!!

Now is the time to start cleaning up all that dead wood winter's storms have cleared and left behind. While you're meandering around in the snow or misty grey days, look at what is there.  You can get the vision while everything is still naked from winter.  It's a blank palette, a giant coloring book - your mind can add in the colors, shapes, textures you wan to see throughout the year.

Planning for nature takes an open mind. It never ends up like it looks on paper. It's the surprises that are the most pleasing.  It's the time when it's still safe to go out and dig up those plants you had admired as they bloomed and want to add to a garden.  Transplanting, moving, rearranging - that's the mood of March!!! Blow out the old...as the new enters on the breeze.

With the March winds blow in bits of imagination for the seasons to come...

You'd LOVE to throw out that stuffy old chair and the stuffy old man sleeping in it all winter!

You'd LOVE to burn all that dried out greenery still hanging around the corners, (hidden from view) of the porch and over wintered gardens.

You'd LOVE to be able to see out of those grayed and speckled windows but you can't get thru the mud or snow drifts to get at them.

You'd LOVE to have something - ANYTHING -fresh in the house, to remind you that there are living molecules in this world and yours!!!!