Unquestionably, I am not ready for winter. Never have been. I don’t like the cold, I don’t like the idleness, and while there will be a few somethings in bloom every day until hellebores and bulbs start flowering in February, the garden is still a bit dreary.

The tropicals were hauled into the basement several weeks ago with somewhat more cold hardy mangaves stashed in the unheated greenhouse, at least temporarily. I was tardy digging, potting, and moving a variegated schefflera indoors before three nights of upper twenty degree temperatures, so it’s lost all leaves. I’ve cut it back, and very likely it will come back in the spring, though it’s not a horrible tragedy if it doesn’t.

With Japanese maples planted beside the walks and patios, leaves started falling on many a month ago with others covering the front walk the night before holiday guests arrived. So, leaf cleanup has been done twice. Since leaves are left in place to decay over most of the garden, the cleanup is a simple chore. The shredded leaves from the walk and patios were spread on the new planting area beside the sunroom as a mulch. Sometime in the next few weeks, I’ll have to make the rounds to clear piles of leaves that cover the hellebores so flowering isn’t delayed, but that’s all the cleanup that will be done before late winter.

While references recommend cutting old leaves off hellebores before the start of the new year, I rarely, almost never do this. Cutting leaves before the flower buds extend is an excellent idea to avoid damage, but the garden is bare enough that I must keep every leaf of evergreen foliage until the last moment. Flowers of many hellebores stand above the foliage, so the only time the leaves are cut is when they brown in severe freezes. Hellebores that nestle flowers down into the foliage are cut just before flowering, and while this isn’t the easiest way, it’s what I expect to do and have been doing for a lot of years.

The sunroom construction is nearly complete. As soon as it’s done there are several plants waiting to go into the ground, and bulbs ordered a week ago when I decided that early color was needed in this area will be dug in as soon as they arrive. A few of the new plantings are marginally cold hardy, so I’m not disappointed by projections that this will be a snowier, but milder winter. Of course, the forecasts are not dependable, so as always I’ll monitor to see if I must protect any of the plants with marginal hardiness with a basket of leaves. I haven’t protected anything in a few years, and hope that keeps up.

Two marginally cold hardy Osmanthus fragrans and a loquat (Eriobotrya japonica) remain in pots outdoors, where it’s likely they’ll stay until some real cold is forecast. I’ve enjoyed the fragrant, orange flowers of one of the osmanthus while it’s been indoors the past few years, but I get tired of hauling large containers inside then out again in the spring. These have to be wheeled around on a dolly, which is nearly more trouble than it’s worth bumping over the stone paths.

Otherwise, this is time to roam the garden, quickly on chilly days, but slowly to savor the scent of witch hazels on mild afternoons. I’ll read, some new books and others plucked off the shelf for the first time in years, to become inspired reading about other gardens and plant discoveries that I’ll quickly be searching for to find sources. Certainly, this is far from my favorite time of the year. Most often, the wait for the first substantial color in late winter seems far too long, but I’ll muddle through, waiting again for what must be the best year ever in the garden.