ESCANABA — I am so ready for poesy parade to begin.

Gitche Manitou get your garden ready.

The April showers are here to sprinkle life on to your wild wonders.

Rain Maker, baptize these barren grounds so winter weary and freeze dried. Lightening flash. Fill the air with ozone. Let the growing season begin.

Who will be the first flower brave enough to crawl out of the earth? Seeking the fickle springtime sunshine gentle little sprouts are coaxed out of hiding.

Out in the wilds of Upper Michigan, sometimes barely noticed by the human eye, wild flowers are gearing up for the growing season. From April through October an amazing garden show featuring a cast of colorful characters will take the stage when it is their special time to bloom.

An avid outdoors person need only the look at the forest floor and meadow to know what month of the year it is. From the first wild violets and blood roots to trilliums, lady slippers, and columbines to daisies, milkweeds and golden rods, it is a wonderful show.

The earliest of wildflowers that appear in late April or May are some of the most delicate and some of the most appreciated. After many months of snow white, leaf litter gray and mud brown, the first tiny, pink wisps of the “spring beauty” flower are a most welcomed sight.

At this time of the year when the rivers and creeks are swollen with melting ice and spring rain, marsh marigolds paint the wetlands with vibrant yellow.

Waxy, white and rare, the trailing arbutus creeps tight to the ground beneath the old pines. Its perfume is the essence of Northwoods springtime.

Hepatica flowers thrive in the moss, mud and shade. Standing on fuzzy little stems and ranging in colors from cream to lavender to purple, this member of the anemone family blooms first and then grows leaves.

Trout lilies appear out of the cold clay. Their leaves are as speckled as the brook trout and their dainty bell like flowers are yellow.

While us folks are at home tending the garden with rake, hoe and shovel, trying to get the daffodils, the hyacinths and tulips to do their thing, God’s garden is right on schedule. God’s garden has a flowering plant for every inch of the wild places.

We plant seeds and bulbs and roots developed in greenhouses to produce excellent flowers, but every year no matter how much we fertilize and water, God’s wildflowers outdo our gardens.

We are certainly blessed to live here in the U.P. where we can beautify our yards with tulips, but have you ever seen a stand of hardwoods with a carpet of hundreds of trilliums below them?

We are fortunate to be able to grow irises of many colors, but have you ever seen bunches of wild lady slippers of pink, magenta, purple and yellow?

We gardeners carefully tend our roses, but have you ever smelled just one flimsy wild rose?

Let the flower season begin. My camera is ready and I will enjoy all of creation.

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Karen (Rose) Wils is a lifelong north Escanaba resident. Her folksy columns appear weekly in Lifestyles.