In a long, dreary winter, one of the indications that spring will eventually come is Groundhog Day. The day became a catchphrase due to the 1993 movie comedy, but buried in the hoopla of the circuslike small-town Feb. 2 celebration is an ancient awareness of the cycles of nature.
Thousands of years ago, people in Northern Europe noticed that small animals began to stir from their nests and burrows about six weeks after the year’s shortest day at the winter solstice. It was a time when buds were starting to swell on trees and the first tiny shoots might be sprouting under a blanket of leaf litter on the forest floor.
There were still weeks of cold to come. Still, plants and animals were responding to the longer days and slightly warmer temperatures, according to Ed Hedborn, plant records manager at The Morton Arboretum in Lisle.
Ancient pagan beliefs that marked these changes lived on through the advance of Christianity and eventually made it to the New World with English and German settlers. They settled on groundhogs as the signal animals.
It wasn’t really a good fit for the ancient custom — groundhogs are still hibernating on Feb. 2, and winters in what is now the northern United States are generally longer, harsher and much more variable than those in Northern Europe. That didn’t stop an enterprising 19th-century newspaper editor from cooking up Groundhog Day as a publicity stunt.
You can laugh off the silliness and still take the day as a reminder that things are starting to look up in your garden. If you look closely around you in February, as those ancient people did, “you can spot signs that plants and animals are preparing for spring,” Hedborn said.
Buds: On trees and shrubs, buds that were formed last summer and fall are filling with moisture and the leaves and flowers inside them are growing and preparing to emerge. “Silver maple, red maple and American elm are among the first trees to pop and bloom in spring,” he said, and during February their buds may take on a reddish or yellowish tinge. The dangling boughs of weeping willows gradually turn bright yellowish-green. “Any time you see a hint of green, it means that chlorophyll is being manufactured in a plant,” he said. That indicates that photosynthesis is starting to convert sunlight into plant food. Closer to the ground, look closely at the buds of early-flowering shrubs such as forsythia and the fuzzy buds of magnolias.
Insects: Many species overwinter in the crevices of tree bark or beneath leaf litter. Look closely at tree bark and you may spot dormant caterpillars. “If you see birds examining the bark, they’re hunting caterpillars,” Hedborn said. As early as late February, the first flies and bees may emerge.
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Sprouts: Nudge aside the mulch or fallen leaves in your yard, as you may see green tips poking out of the soil. Cover them up again so the insulation of the mulch can protect them against both cold spells and warm spells in late winter.
Blooms: Depending on the winter weather, a few species may even bloom in February, such as witch-hazel (which can be seen in the Arboretum’s Witch-Hazel Dell) and snowdrops. “It’s still cold, and we can always get severe weather in February and March,” Hedborn said. But there’s no stopping the lengthening days that power the natural world for spring with increasing sunlight. Hedborn is preparing too: His Bloom Report, which will tell Arboretum visitors what flowers and other spring sights to see, will begin on its website sometime in March, depending on the weather.
For tree and plant advice, contact the Plant Clinic at The Morton Arboretum (630-719-2424, mortonarb.org/plant-clinic, or [email protected]). Beth Botts is a staff writer at the Arboretum.