With any luck, last week’s cold snap will be winter’s final bow for 2026. But for anyone in the world of gardening, spring is anything but predictable.
"You know, you do your best as a horticulturist to plan on what Mother Nature is going to do," says Jonathan Caples, the new Director of Horticulture at the Memphis Botanic Garden. "But you're at the hands of her. We can't control that."
Caples is standing in a field full of tulips. They are gorgeous: a sprawling rainbow carpet of yellow, white, purple red.
And they’re dying.
"We were planning and hoping this weekend would have been the beginning of the tulips," he said. "And that they would have been blooming through the first few weeks of April."
The groundhog predicted a longer winter. The tulips didn't get the memo. They were ready to come up three weeks ago.
In backyards, an early spring awakening might not be a big deal. But at the Memphis Botanic Garden, it meant one of the biggest floral displays of the year beat promoters to the punch.
For Caples, it’s a reminder that gardening is a collaborative effort between humans and Mother Nature.
"At my old job, we talked about how nature is very complex, but not complicated. And anything we do as humans just complicates it," he said. "But knowing that you don’t have control as much as you would like to… it is those happy accidents that keep it fresh, keep it exciting."
It will now be sooner rather than later that the Botanic Garden’s staff will have to dig up those tulip bulbs -- all 350,000 of them.
The second wave of spring is at hand. Up next are azaleas and a variety of trees: redbuds, dogwoods and cherries. In April come the roses, then hydrangeas, followed by the perennials. In May and June come the bright annuals.
This spring is a special one for Caples. It’s his first as a Memphis resident. The Houston native has been here for four cold months. He’s ready, in many ways, for all kinds of new growth.
"I'm still venturing out and kind of learning what Memphis has to offer," Caples said.
Like many new transplants, he’s soaking in the culture. He says the best public gardens tell a hometown story.
"Some of my favorite gardens that I've visited really feel like those cities," he said. "Like if I have a connection to those cities, they really feel like that city."
And as Caples learns for the first time what makes a Memphis garden a real Memphis garden -- besides, maybe, the Canada Geese that will soon be laying eggs around his workplace -- he’s also reconnecting, once more, with that other inevitable sign of spring that even professional horticulturalists can’t ignore.
"I started my allergy medicines this week. Pollen and grasses are my nemesis for sure," he said.
As the tulips predicted, and the nose can confirm, Memphis is officially in full swing... er, spring.
