I so, so, so long for spring. I guess I have to wait for April…. when in other years magnolias were already in bloom in early March.

Morning – is the place for Dew –

Morning – is the place for Dew – 

Corn – is made at Noon – 

After dinner light – for flowers – 

Dukes – for setting sun! 

 by Emily Dickinson                                                           F223 (1861)  197

Magnolias, not unlike those captured in the photographs, were planted in Dickinson’s garden over 150 years ago, species not native to the region. By now they have migrated, to neighboring towns and from there up North, with climate change making it possible for them to survive in habitats not native for them.

Looked at it the other way around, should gardeners help non-native species to survive by adding them to regions that now have temperatures and water conditions suitable for them? They are doomed to die in their original habitats, after all?

Natural range shifts have certainly been documented by living beings that are able to move to preferred locations, like birds, insects and mammals. Historically, those migrations would have brought plants with them, in the form of seeds traveling via droppings, or clinging to fur and the like. But the species that would have dispersed the magnolias – the mastodons, giant ground-sloth and other mega-fauna – are extinct.

Here is the dilemma: on the one hand you might cheer the survival of a species under changing climate conditions, and go all in to give it a horticulturally helping hand. On the other side, though, many new species might then contribute to the decline and disappearance of those that are truly native to a particular region, themselves stressed by the new climate conditions. After all we know from biology research that a species’ risk of becoming invasive increases with the distance of its historic native range from the region it is colonizing. (Ref.)

I have no solution. Let’s just look at these pictures from other years, harbingers of spring, and enjoy them. We have to take joy were we can find it in these dark, wet days, and blooming trees are among the most joyful things I can conjure.

Music offers a spring song from Dvorak’s Poetic Tone Pictures – with a few others from that Opus thrown in as a bonus for being brave and cheerful!