Nonetheless, although it was not much above 30, there was no breeze and the sun was shining, so I toured my gardens to take my monthly notes, bundled head to toe in long coat, large purple cape thrown garrishly around my neck and shoulders, gloves, boots – and camera. I decided visual notes would be much quicker than struggling with a clipboard and pencil in my be-mittened fingers.
Yesterday I took a walk around my gardens. We had been hit with freezing weather almost every day since Thanksgiving and a snow storm the day after Christmas, so I had been hybernating: a friend commented to a recent post that she would call me ‘hothouse naturalist’! Well, that’s half true. I neither like to go out when it’s under 45 (which rules out quite a few months!) nor when it’s over 90 (which is most of the summer, so I garden VERY early or VERY late in the day). That only leaves me a small temperature range in which I go out and play! One must wonder why gardening is my passion… Nonetheless, although it was not much above 30, there was no breeze and the sun was shining, so I toured my gardens to take my monthly notes, bundled head to toe in long coat, large purple cape thrown garrishly around my neck and shoulders, gloves, boots – and camera. I decided visual notes would be much quicker than struggling with a clipboard and pencil in my be-mittened fingers. And what pleasant sights I saw through my camera lens! I have been attempting to expand my inventory of evergreen plants and was happy to find quite a few newly acquired herbs and Stepables seemingly un-phased by the frigid weather. Small, still, but quite happy! Several bare bushes showed red-tinged branches, red and orange rosehips clung to bare stems, shades of silver and rust, maroon and purple appeared here and there in the leaves of hardier plants, my butterfly bush, towering above my head, still held its silvery leaves, and attractive seedheads of aster and sedum and coreopsis clung to their dormant plants. My crab apples cheered me with their deep red fruit, and the interesting bark of my okame cherry and the twisting trunk of my japanese maple created an attractive picture. The photos I took this month and those I will take in February and March will give me a clear picture of my gardens through the winter months, so that I can continue to improve them, making them more appealing, and more satisfying to my craving for color. I hope to post many entries evaluating different plants, so that you can benefit from my research. But I enjoyed my walk in the brisk sunshine yesterday. Squatting down next to a small but green thyme or zooming in on deep red rosehips made me focus on the positive, literally, in an otherwise dreary world. And that’s a life lesson we should all take to heart.
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AuthorWelcome to Growing Goodness! This website is dedicated to growing good things, both plants and children. It's a gardening blog with maternal overtones, as I discuss the goodness and value of plants, both wild and domestic. In the process I hope to help you pass a love of nature on to your children. Happy Gardening! Archives
August 2011
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