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Notes From the Garden
Notes From The GardenIn the Winter Bareness, Visions of Summer Bounty
By Madeleine Wilde
Dec 30, 1998 -- Reviewing my new calendar for the upcoming New Year, I discovered that National Gardening Month starts on April Fool's Day. Hmmmmm . why does this amuse me so?Perhaps it gives voice to that quiet feeling which lurks about the edges as I eagerly start reviewing the thick and tempting seed catalogues. Will I succeed in having as many unused seed packets later in the year as I have unplanted bulbs currently?
Yet this is so much fun, at the beginning of a new year, to think grandly once again. In the winter bareness, we have visions of the summer bounty. Our new books dazzle us with full blooming gardens and we relish the idea of setting out with a handsome trug to harvest the exotic vegetables from our own gardens. We cleverly forget the hours of nurturing that the full-bore garden requires.
I have found though that the garden can be most forgiving. If the roses don't get pruned, they still produce blooms. The apple trees will fruit again without pruning and the trees and shrubs which get transplanted late in the spring almost always survive their late dislocation. Wonderful volunteers, such as foxgloves, spring up in areas that should have been more thoroughly weeded or mulched, and a big, fat and fuzzy mullein often fills in an area that I had perceived to be a dangerously dull bare spot.
So we plan and order and mentally shape our gardens. We know we are in charge! But then time and weather occur, and by April the garden has taken on a life of its own. It has become "this year's" version of our keen plans. We revise and once again set out, now to nurseries and plant sales. We are so fortunate to have many dedicated local merchants who tempt us with their displays. We can find, very close to home, many of our old favorites, along with some surprising new choices which might be fun to try. It is not necessary to go to the superstores when it comes time to buy a few new plants.
The small, locally owned nurseries and garden stores offer a wealth of advice and are staffed by dedicated enthusiasts who have garnered their knowledge from their own extensive hands-on work. I love to see their eyes light up with my questions. They immediately launch into the many potential answers and suddenly the world opens up again with exciting possibilities. Suddenly my well-thought out plans take a new turn and then another.
But I am getting ahead of myself. It is still winter with its soggy or frozen ground. We bundle up and rush out, in between storms, to check for damage and with high hopes of seeing the first Winter Iris or brave snowdrop. We find ourselves making more resolutions about the coming year, while surreptitiously slipping another check into a seed order envelope. Some of us log onto the Internet and fill our shopping carts with specialized peonies, specie roses, or rare clematis varieties. We are dreaming again and having such a grand time. We are actively trying to suspend time before the lush speedy growth of the springtime. In many ways this is a solitary time for us with our gardens. These are our quiet dreams before we are once again outdoors or out socializing with our local plant merchants.
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