Winter Garden

I was reading yesterday that my tasks in the January garden included inspecting to see whether things were getting ready to come to life. What a pleasant task. Instead, I am walking through my winter garden and noting all the things from fall gardening that haven’t gotten done yet. Half of the raspberries got cut back, but only half. All the old fern leaves need to be trimmed back before the new ones start up and in a northwest forest-y garden, there are plenty of ferns to be trimming. There are yet maple leaves, wet and unattractive, clogging up paths and flower beds. Not enough to provide a nice mulch effect (not to mention a warm blanket for slugs), just enough to suggest that a sluggardly garden-wife lives here. The calendulas kept blooming into late November, and I never quite got to cutting them back, so they stand there, now with unsightly black, blown flowers, brought to that state by the quick and hard freeze we endured last month.

In addition, everywhere I look there are small and medium fir branches, brought down by the winter winds. They ought to be gathered up for the disposal pile. There are little starts of ‘herbe robert,’ a dreaded plant that I am trying to get rid of but if I don’t get a start on that infestation soon will have no chance of getting rid of. So much work, so much time, so much bad weather: too cold, too wet.

Not bad enough to hide all this unsightly garden, though. Those in harsher climes, as I remember from having lived in them, can simply ignore their garden all through the winter because it's under a bed of snow and instead devote themselves to gardening catalogs, imagining the joys that spring will bring. Those in warmer climes, as I also remember from having lived in them, never get to quit gardening, which has its own lack of appeal. So we are stuck here, needing to do some gardening chores but not having enough seemly weather to achieve them.

Unable or unwilling to do what I think ought to be January chores in the garden, I tried the book’s recommendations. I went out, looking for signs of coming to life. Of course, the Indian plum trees have fat green buds, which is reassuring. More than reassuring, though, was the discovery of the tulips, forcing their way up from that cold ground and now about 2 inches up through the messy leaf mixture. They won’t bloom until April; so kind of them to make a show now when we really need the encouragement.