I don’t know if it is because we endured such a harsh winter this year, but the spring season seems like it has come to us in high-definition. I’ve read the media coverage about the mother-of-all-allergy-seasons and the double deluxe blooming in the woods and fields. That’s part of the overall quality outside, the grass extra thick and leaves extra dense.

In a year when it seemed like spring was never going to turn the calendar, the season arrived bigtime. Have you ever seen the flowering trees around the city so massively blossomed? My wife and I bought our annual supply of yard flowers at “Sykes the Florist & Greenhouses” on Lawrence Street yesterday afternoon. The place is a riot of color, as the saying goes. We bought as many flats of impatiens, fat marigolds, and other varieties whose names I can’t remember as would fit in the trunk of the car and back seat. And a couple of geraniums, robust red ones. If you don’t know “Sykes,” treat yourself to a visit to an urban oasis. What a plus to have a place like this in the city. I didn’t see zinnias there yesterday. I’m looking for zinnias that will go strong all summer. I heard there might be some at a greenhouse on River Road. Let me know if you have a source.

The plantings along the upgraded sidewalk on the Thorndike Street side of the South Common appear to have made it through the brutal winter intact. The new trees and flowering bushes have bounced back to life. In the South Common Historic District, we’re looking forward to the completion of the sidewalk project all the way up to Highland Street.