Lesson learned from the snowdrops in my garden...PERSERVERE!

Every year, during the January thaw, I walk to my garden beds and look for the snowdrops. Right now, they're about an inch high and the white color is showing on the buds. They'll look like this pic in about a month.

Snowdrops are unassuming little plants with teardrop-shaped white blooms that are about 1/2 inch long. They look delicate. I grow them because in the dead of a northern winter, they're a reminder that spring is coming. They bloom long before the crocus. They push right up through the snow.

Our January thaw is over now. We've had bitter cold and an 8 inch blanket of snow in the last week. Will this affect the snowdrops? Not at all. They're tough and they wait out harsh conditions.

When this snow melts back, they'll be taller and closer to blooming than they are now. The leaves and buds will show no sign of being frozen. They'll just appreciate that they see the sun and they'll get on with what they're meant to do.

They are the first stirrings of a northern garden and a sign that things are already better and they're about to get better still.

You wouldn't know it from the roses. They're dead twigs right now. You wouldn't know it from the hydrangeas. Their diva-blooms retreated to the fainting couch in fall, and they won't emerge till June or later.

Take it from the snowdrops.

image from:http://www.tolquhon-gallery.co.uk/Spring%202007/february_snowdrops.jpg