Drink in the spring before it leaves us

This is the height of the shade-garden season. The new leaves are still fresh and tender on the trees. Their hardened glaze has yet to be baked on. On the ground, the floral activity is frantic, with plants pumping out flowers and sucking in sunlight before the canopy covers them in ripening shade. Long-spurred columbines seem to shoot skyward like exploding fireworks. The nodding hoods of jack- in-the-pulpit perch beneath their triangle of leaves, hidden cobras with stripes of liver and white.

Colonies of lily-of-the-valley have claimed swaths of fresh territory this year. They are on the march, mingling their rhizomes among the choice and cherished specimens in the shade garden: ferns, hostas, primrose.

I am not ready yet to rogue out these sentinels because they are still in bloom, dangling their milk white bells, spilling their ethereal fragrance and walking a broad line ­-- flowers of virginal innocence and plants of thuggish behavior.

Garden fragrances

When you write about fragrance, there is little choice but to use analogy. A flower might be reminiscent of cinnamon, musk or vanilla. Often flowers are described as better than jasmine or as good as gardenia.

Fragrance, with its hotwire to memory, may be more personal than any of our garden experiences. Lily-of-the-valley and violets always take me back to my boyhood days, poking about in my mother's garden. In the woods behind our house, we dug up the violets that we liked and brought them into the garden. She called them confederate violets -- the white ones with purple veins. Violets and lin the woods behind our house were a standard kitchen-table decoration in the spring.

The two spread together beneath the nodding peonies in a garden that bordered the back side of the house. The lily-of-the-valley wove its way between the loose-brick edging, and if you lifted one, you could see the flattened white rhizomes beneath. The whole scene was a jumble of disorder that I would like to think I would never allow into my own garden. But as I look at these lilies of the valley it occurs to me that I may be well on my way to the same predicament.

Another scent that is wholly distinct is that of ferns, and it conjures memories, too. In the woods behind my house, there was a hillside of hay-scented ferns next to a hemlock grove. An endless variety of shade patterns were produced from fronds and needled branches. There was the kind of lush darkness that is produced by great wilderness, but if I opened my boyhood eyes I could easily see the end of this patch of trees. For me, fern scent is reminiscent of that place, a secret childhood wilderness.

I would not plant hay-scented ferns in my garden, not unless I had acres to fill. They run faster and cover much more space than lily of the valley. But there are many other choices of hardy ferns.

Unfurling ferns are one of the greatest pleasures of the spring in my opinion. Most have already unrolled their crosiers and fanned delicately over the understory, but a few are still working on it. One of these is the Harts tongue fern, which, I presume, is named for Mr. Hart and the tongue-shaped frond of the fern and not for Mr. Hart's tongue. It has solid strap-shaped leaves of great poise and grace, even though they are the simplest of structures.

There is a heart-shaped cleft at the base of the frond, and they are covered with a silvery sheen of hair and golden scales. It is a small fern, less than a foot. The common or Northern maidenhair fern is just making its way in the past few weeks as well. It is one that works its way among other plants and starts with a delicate, almost wirelike, stem that can reach about 2 feet tall.

Eventually the stems thicken and harden to a sleek ebony and uncurl a horseshoe-shaped frond with tiny, fan-shaped leaves all in rank. All the ferns in this family Adiantum are among the most delicate and graceful plants that can be grown, and the perfect foil for them is the hosta. It is a typical planting scheme, but I never tire of it. Played against the broad leaves of the hosta, the delicate maidenhair becomes even more so, and then there is the interplay of corrugated hosta leaves against fern shadows as they rock lightly in the spring breeze.

I often hear from gardeners that they get their weekly chore list from our accompanying This Week in the Garden graphic. They tease me that I supply the honey-do list. This week in the garden, I implore you to make a good pot of coffee and, before the dew has lifted, go out and appreciate your garden. Whether you have three plants or 3,000, it is doubtless beautiful right now. Spring is a fleeting pleasure, so give it your full attention and admiration.

■ If you have a gardening question or story idea, write to David Bare in care of Features, Winston-Salem Journal, P.O. Box 3159, Winston-Salem, NC 27101-3159, or send e-mail to his attention to gardening@wsjournal.com.