Not proudly, I admit that I am not much of a reader, at least not of books. Too short an attention span, I suppose. Nevertheless, to fill the winter hours I’ve reread five books long dormant in our small home library, and purchased and read two others. So there.
All were garden related, one on design and the others plants. So, properly inspired, I am primed for spring, with several mail orders in the works for oddities that cannot be obtained through the garden center. Another list has been prepared for garden center purchases, and in a marvel of advanced planning (for me anyway), there are set locations for two modestly sized Japanese maples. I’ve little clue where anything else is to go.
One maple, ‘Twombly’s Red Sentinel’ has, as its name suggests, a narrow, columnar habit, which will fit perfectly into a spot beside a path where a wider grower would not work. Not that the garden needs another Japanese maple (there are 30+), but this is the appropriate plant for this spot where another has failed. Why I haven’t planted ‘Twombly’s’ before, I don’t know, but it is a fine small tree for an area with limited space. After twenty nine years jamming in every plant that will fit, that perfectly describes this garden.
On days with mild (or almost mild) temperatures in recent weeks I’ve tried to get a bit of a jump on spring planting and clean up, and perhaps several hours here and there have combined to save a day of labor that would otherwise be on a pleasant weekend day in March. It’s hardly enough to count towards the weeks that will be required to clean this place up, but it gets me off the couch and outdoors. Enough with the books.
Ramblin' through Dave's Garden 
I avoid reading too! Isn’t that funny? I have been writing my gardening column for almost two decades (It will be two decades in October.), but I do not like reading. Ironically, I started writing my gardening article because I was so annoyed by the few things that I read in the gardening section of the San Jose Mercury News.
When I was relatively new in the business the Washington Post garden writer was the renowned Henry Mitchell. Even you take a back seat to Henry’s writing.
Even me? That sound more like a compliment than the insult you might have intended. The back seat is better than the trunk, which is where I would have put some of the guys who wrote for the San Jose Mercury News and the Los Angeles Times. Their stuff was a bunch of hooey! I do not mind taking the back seat for someone one who know how to write well. I am a horticulturist, not a writer.