By the time we lost Daylight Saving Time last fall I'd become as gloomy as a kid sent to bed without dessert. I think I'm one of those people who go into a decline when deprived of sunlight. I've never been diagnosed with the syndrome known as Seasonal Affective Disorder (its wonderfully appropriate acronym is SAD) but supposedly it can be cured by sitting in front of fluorescent light tubes which emit the full spectrum of light found in sunshine.
Since I'm too cheap to buy one of these sun boxes and suspect I would never have the patience to sit in front of one for very long, I just poke along through each bleak New England winter, counting the days until spring.
The sun's rays offer us nothing but cold, cheerless light in January, as cold as moonlight. February's sun isn't much better, too weak to defrost an icicle. But now we're at the end of March and things are looking up. Even with temperatures hovering in the teens, the sun has taken on the characteristics of a good kindergarten teacher, preparing the ground for spring growth, luring snowdrops and crocuses out into the open, encouraging maple buds to swell with confidence, waking up the peepers and the pussy willows.
Mother Nature and her sun perform all these miracles. Even those drab little gray birds that argue with each other at the thistle feeder all winter are magically turning back into goldfinches. I don't see how they manage that, do you? Are their feathers getting a sort of sunburn as spring returns, the way we humans get a tan as we work outside?
By summer the sun is not so benign. It can blister and shrivel anything it sets its eye on. Unprotected plants wither as it sucks moisture from their leaves and dries out the soil around their roots. In autumn the sun loses its power quickly, but because the earth has absorbed its heat for many months, the affect of the sun's weakened light takes a surprising amount of time.
The sun is as vital an ingredient in making a garden as thread is in sewing a slipcover. Whether you're growing perennials, annuals, vegetables, shade-loving wildflowers or heat-loving cacti, you need sunlight. When planning your garden, think about how and where and when the sun's rays will fall. Trees and shrubs planted on either the east or west side of a garden will create much longer shadows on the north or sout.
The closer land is to the equator, the more vertical will be the light falling on the land. In the tropics where the sun shines down from directly overhead and vanishes in seconds at the end of the day, its light offers a dazzling brightness. It is often so brilliant that it destroys colors, turning the sky white and plants into mere black silhouettes. Such vertical sunlight creates small dark pools of shade beneath trees and shrubs, and highlights all perpendicular surfaces, sparkles the waves on water and accents the shadowed crevices in walls.
Our summer sunlight in New England
comes from closer to the horizon, offering
a more angled light. Even on June 21st,
when the sun reaches its highest point in
crossing the sky, its angle over New Eng-
land is nowhere near 90 degrees. It's only
about 45. As the sun reaches the equinox,
its angle is even more acute, and by the
winter solstice, a mere sliver. The shadows
of our locust trees stretch all the way a-
cross the sheep pasture at this time of
year.
Before planting a landscape, it makes sense to think about the affects of sunlight and shadow on the area. When the air is moist, the sun gives a soft, filtering light which picks out the details and colors of plants. It creates patterns of foliage and slowly lengthening shadows as evening falls, and offers backlighting as it moves across the sky.
Sunlight can make an area warm and cheerful or dry and withering. It will turn the water in a birdbath silver or black, put diamond sparkles into the ripples of moving water. Lack of sunshine can mean a cool retreat or a dark cold corner. Having a sheltered spot which stays shady through the hot summer is as important as having one that is protected from wind and receives sunlight all winter.
I wish I had a warm protected spot like that to cheer up these past months. Alas, the wind blows wickedly all winter on Locust Hill. That's OK. Mr. Sun is getting warmer every day.
