March came in like the proverbial lion but according to weather forecasters, it looks like it will go out like one too. If we weren’t optimists, we might wonder if we should still expect April showers to bring May flowers.

No matter how long we have to wait, when the curtain finally opens, I, and other gardeners I’ve kvetched with, predict that the entire cast and chorus of spring will rush the stage and hog the spotlight.

Soon enough (not soon enough) new colors will saturate our retinas and we’ll be so overwhelmed by the scents, flavors, and sounds of the growing season that only the grandest displays of the showiest plants will knock our socks off. Like everyone else, I can’t wait for that moment. But in the meantime, I rediscovered an upside to delay. The best thing about a clingy winter and reluctant spring is that right now it doesn’t take much to make me as giddy as a teenager with a crush. Any evidence of spring, no matter how small, is huge.

A couple of weeks ago I spotted skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus) spathes poking out of the snow and ice along a stream-side walk in the woods with my dog. He didn’t seem to understand why I whooped and danced a jig but was willing enough to join in the revelry. (Good boy!) This native wildflower would barely qualify as a flower by garden standards and certainly wouldn’t garner much enthusiasm if anything besides melt was going on around it. Its flower parts stink of rotten meat (not that I’ve ever gotten close enough for a whiff) and are enclosed inside a mottled burgundy hood that is well camouflaged in mud and leaf debris at least until its large salad-green leaves begin to unfurl. But it offers a warm haven for the earliest pollinators, and for me it cues spring with something like an orchestra’s discordant warm up.

It takes an eagle eye to spot some of the first crocuses too. Tiny tommies (Crocus tommasinianus) with their translucent petals, albino-pale stems, and toughness always remind me of trip I took to Russia back in high school. Specifically of a view from the tour bus of middle-aged men and women stripped to their underwear sunbathing along the concrete banks of St. Petersburg’s (then Leningrad’s) Neva River on a wicked cold April day. Winter-spurning, sun-loving opportunists, all.

I can see the appeal and I’m inclined to join them (fully clothed). Even on cold days the sun is as warm as a blanket, bright enough to deepen my squint wrinkles, and strong enough to require UV protection. It has woken my houseplants from their winter nap and gotten them growing again. Their tiny new shoots are so exciting I dance another jig every time I make my rounds with the watering can, which I have had to do more often these days. They are also the best reminders to start liquid-feeding again periodically (every month or so) with diluted fish fertilizer if you can stand the stink or a tiny scoop of the blue synthetic stuff if you can’t.

I just remembered that this, the just-before when I have to be all ears and eyes on the hunt for it, is my favorite part of spring. I love listening for its herald in the boop of foghorns and the call of red-winged blackbirds, and watching it arrive day by day in the golding stems of weeping willows and the red swelling buds of maples. Now that the curtain is finally opening on spring I’m happy for the drama to build slowly enough that I won’t miss any of the little things before all summer breaks loose.

Kristin Green is the interpretive horticulturist at Blithewold Mansion, Gardens & Arboretum and author of "Plantiful: Start Small, Grow Big with 150 Plants that Spread, Self-Sow, and Overwinter" (Timber Press). Follow Blithewold’s garden blog at blog.blithewold.org.