The average last frost date in Western New York is April 30 to May 15, some sources say May 11-20 for Southern Ontario. On the calendar, March 20 is the official start of spring. Gardening and growing things has always helped me feel grounded (get it? Grounded?? I could drink coffee while gardening and make even more puns!) But…timing is important. In Western New York and Southern Ontario, a person can still experience winter and even summer during March and April, no matter what the calendar says.
When memories of repeatedly scraping windshields just begin to fade into the distance, hope can feel like hours of wandering Urban Roots, Put A Plant On It, Elbers, Lavocat’s, Lockwood’s Greenhouse or even the big box stores’ displays of seed packets!
My garden dreams will come true in some form eventually. And in the meantime, I can fuel my imagination with music by others who’ve been charmed by the changing seasons so much, they wrote music about it. It’s not just Antonio Vivaldi’s Four Seasons!
Less common music versions of the seasons are The Months by Peter Tchaikovsky (better known as The Seasons), Das Jahr (The Year) by Fanny Mendelssohn, Astor Piazzolla’s Four Seasons in Buenos Aires, The Seasons Ballet by Alexander Glazunov, the Felix Mendelssohn Spring Song, Edvard Grieg’s To Spring and Amy Beach’s music about birds and her From Grandmother’s Garden.
I don’t know exactly when we’ll see the last frost of the season, but I do know that we’ll be enjoying lots of seasonal music together this spring on BTPM Classical.
