March (Spring) Madness

In most of the world, a season change is imminent, for us here in the northern hemisphere of the West, tomorrow is the first day of Spring! Yes! There is much celebration, the media continually talks about March Madness, talk of seeding and brackets are everywhere in print and in the air. All this talk just because its the first day of....wait the NCAA tournament!? This is the most important time of the created media, college sports world, however for those of us in the real world, talk of seeding means hitting the garden center, not 3 pointers, and the only brackets we are thinking of are those plant parts holding the blooms of early flowers.
While tonite there are play-in games, I will be thinking about plow-in opportunities for fertilizer and other soil enhancers. I will not be disappointed by turnovers in my March madness because they will reveal hardworking earthworms doing their duty of enriching the earth, not enriching their wallets. In the midst of my celebration I be making free throws with rocks into the 5 gallon bucket or wheelbarrow to get them out of my court. As I continue to work through the regions of my yard, I'll take stock of the players who will be moved into the pro leagues of new gardens and in the evening I'll look at the lists of new players that I may draft to fill spaces where particular plant players weren't able to perform up to my expectations.
In my March madness, I rip up weeds, who are playing where they shouldn't be and surround those favored plants who survived the winter season, with a pre-season cushion of mulch, so they can grow stronger through the spring into the stressful summer training season.
In about a month, my March madness will turn into plant pandemonium, as real spring comes and the temp doesn't fall to freezing on a whim. My seeming madness of being out in the bare looking gardens will be paid back in full. Enter April, May and June, when the iris don their flowing jerseys and daylilies, in full color, trumpet to the bees that it is REAL SPRING. Tulips, phlox, and sundrops will post up to defend against the growing green landscape, scoring points with passers by and ladybugs alike. No black and white whistle blowers here, no fouls, anything that blooms makes points, sometimes even weeds. I am convinced that God's favorite flower is the dandelion, so instead of cursing the yellow dots, I look at them as punctuation to Spring:
Spring is here! Spring is HERE!
Yes, March spring madness is here, so tomorrow I won't be listening to see if some small school beat some large school, I'll be taking the day off and spend it counting dandelions and earthworms. Come go mad with me!
Peace!