WINTER WALK IN THE GARDEN

GARDEN WALK IN THE WINTER

“Just remember in the winter/far beneath  the bitter snow…”

New Year’s Day is a good day to walk in the garden, a time to survey its bare bones and make resolutions for the coming year.  But the garden is not dead; as well, there are many fair days in winter to stroll through the garden, and what more beautiful than a walk in the snow, when one can study the tracks of all the little creatures that have been checking out the garden as well, and…oh wait…how did those deer tracks get there?

How exciting to discover last year’s bird nests in the shrubs, roses, and honeysuckle, because now that limbs are bare the nests can be clearly seen.  How humbling to think that this protected shelter I provided for them.  Even now, they can be heard twittering in the honeysuckle and other vines and shrubs that still have leaves, wondering if I came out to scatter bird seed for them.  And of course, several species of birds at the feeders, including a pileated woodpecker sampling the suet block.

I like to search out winter blooming shrubs and bulbs to set out in my garden, and to check them now to see how they are coming along.  “Winter blooms” usually means late winter or early spring, depending on how the weather fares.  At Christmas I brought in some sprigs of winter jasmine, the plants of which were gifts from my gardening friend, Sally Mullins, several years ago.  Bright yellow flowers that one might mistake for forsythia, and when the sprigs or branches are brought in and placed in a vase, they will continue to open more buds each day, and there are still some fresh ones there.  As well, there are tiny, waxen white four-petaled flowers of Daphne, fragrant, and buds showing their color on the winter honeysuckle (in spite of the deer’s efforts to swallow the whole thing), and on the winter spike hazel.  Viburnum bodnantense as well.  Their buds will all hold quite well if it gets really cold again.  The earliest bulbs I will expect to see blooming, possibly this month, are snow drops and winter aconite.  Daffodils are already pushing up their green shoots, through the leaf mulch, in some cases, pushing up the leaves with them.

We are having a couple of days with temperatures in the 50s, but don’t be fooled.  There is still ice on the pond and in the duck water tubs, and patches of snow in sheltered places.   And we know that the cold and the snow are needed for many shrubs, plants, bulbs and perennials to survive.  Not t mention, that we have a respite in order to have time to browse the seed catalogs and make our selections for this year.