This is a true story. I went to lunch with a friend at a nice restaurant and ordered a two-piece, white meat chicken dinner.
When the server brought it to my table, I was a bit confused about the entree and asked, “Can you tell me, what part of the chicken is this?” She replied that it was a chicken breast.
“Hmm, so your two-piece chicken dinner is one piece of chicken breast cut in half, is that right?”
“Yes!” she said cheerfully.
I said, “Well, I’m really hungry, so could you take this chicken back to the kitchen and cut it in half again, because I’d really like a four-piece chicken dinner.”
She was not as amused as I was.
Cutting an object into smaller pieces for greater value doesn't typically work out so well, and yet, that’s what I’m asking you to do on your next walk through the Arboretum. Take four seasons and cut them into many pieces for your greater enjoyment. Here we go!
Snowdrops are a sure sign of early spring in the Woodland Azalea Garden. They generate heat as they grow, which melts the snow.
Our basic framework is four main seasons created by the Earth's yearly trip around the sun, combined with the tilt of its axis. The pattern is summer solstice, autumnal equinox, winter solstice and vernal equinox. An easy way to increase the seasonal guideposts of a year is to add in four meteorological seasons that begin quarterly on the first day of June, September, December and March.
In China and Japan, seasons are divided into 24 segments, describing each “small season” with more detail, including agricultural information. The Chinese introduced the lunisolar calendar to Japan via Korea in the mid-sixth century. The name of the Japanese calendar, 24 sekki, means 24 solar segments of the calendar year.
One garden with hundreds of views, the Chinese Garden’s Peony Pavilion frames each vista.
April brings rain and 穀雨 (kokuu), the “grain rain,” and is the sixth micro season in the 24-segment solar calendar. We say, “April showers bring May flowers,” to acknowledge the annual mid-spring rains. April is a month of expansion and the perfect time to witness a multitude of change and growth every single day.
Nature does the talking in the moon calendar of the Dakota people, which closely follows all of creation in a single song. Maga Okada Wi is the geese egg laying moon, March 29-April 26, 2025, on the Gregorian calendar. The geese tell us that the waterways are beginning to open up. Historically, the geese and eggs provided much-needed protein from a winter diet. Agriculture and the proliferation of corn crops have made a year-round home for Canada geese.
April brings the Dakota “Maga Okada Wi,” or geese egg laying moon.
You can learn more about the Dakota moon calendar and culture at Hoċokata Ṫi, which means “lodge at the center of the camp,” in the Dakota language.
The seasons evolve in real-time each and every day with some new delight, making us grateful to be in Minnesota, a world of many more than four seasons.
Cover photo: Pussy willows bloom in abundance in the Chinese Garden.
Zan Tomko is an artist, horticulturist, Minnesota Master Naturalist Instructor and a co-founder of the iNaturalist Minnesota Lichen Map Project. To learn more about the University of Minnesota Extension’s Master Naturalist program, visit their website.