Today, no snow, thankfully. A year ago, I was still digging out from thirty-two inches, with four feet drifted against the garage door, thinking I’m too old for this, but thankful that I finally broke down and bought a small snow blower. It didn’t seem possible that the small electric gadget could move this much…
Category: landscaping
Modest plans for spring
In this second week of January, several seed catalogs and a few from mail order plant suppliers have arrived in the mailbox. Once, the box was stuffed with catalogs after the start of the new year, but today it is the email bin that overflows. It’s been a while since I’ve grown anything from seed…
Squirrel deterrent
Hot pepper added to sunflower seed has barely slowed squirrels from feasting at our birdfeeder. This redtailed hawk will do the trick, but unfortunately, birds are the hawk’s intended prey, so none will come close.Photos are poor quality taken through kitchen windows. With the feeder only thirty feet from the house, the hawk would flee…
January flowers
In the mild early winter a year ago, hellebores and snowdrops began flowering in December, with witch hazels and winter jasmine following in early January until all were buried under thirty two inches of snow the third week of the month. This winter has not been so warm, probably closer to average, but still with…
Nothing to do, but enjoy
This chilly afternoon was spent clearing piles of leaves that cover hellebores, and from areas where I suppose snowdrops are planted, though I could be off by a few feet in recollecting their exact placement. I don’t know if this forgetfulness is a trait of gardeners, and hopefully not only of older ones, though in…
Signs of far off spring
Not yet a third of the way through winter, and already the gardener looks for hopeful signs of spring. Two, too long months remain, and while winter flowering mahonias and witch hazels brighten this gray period, any glimpse of color from late winter and spring bloomers is most encouraging. In the unusual January with only…
Cold enough
Certainly, family in Idaho will be unimpressed by northwestern Virginia’s chilly high of twenty one degrees this afternoon. Today, an inch of snow has fallen, not enough for the neighbor’s kids to ride their sleds on the grassy slope between our houses, but enough so that at least it looks like winter. On a cloudy…
Addition by subtraction
I excuse that any old time garden must have its blights, and here there are several, mostly evergreens that have become excessively shaded so that lower foliage has browned. (Probably, there are more, which I will blissfully ignore.) Upper needles of a gold tipped Lawson cypress (Chamaecyparis lawsoniana ‘Golden Showers’) remain, but in the shade…
The best ….. and the worst of it
Leaves have fallen, flowers faded, and now the gardener will reflect on the year past, and consider the year to come. Each year brings shares of joy and disaster to the garden in unequal measure, and again I am pleased that the balance decidedly favors the positive. Perhaps there has been a year or two…
A very average early winter
Some discussion over the holiday recollected that a year ago Christmas was seventy degrees. Though I don’t recall the specifics, much of that early winter was warm so that hellebores were flowering before the new year. While this season has not been so mild, temperatures have not been particularly cold except a few nights that…
The garden’s paths
Over the better part of three decades, a hodgepodge of stone paths has been constructed to wind through the garden. In some instances, paths preceded the planting of the garden, which was then planted after ready access was available. None of the paths is artfully constructed, and even the more formal path to the front…
Winter, and my dull prose
I regret that too often my dull prose does not adequately depict the beauty I see in the garden. I suspect that I am too literal, and certainly not inclined to romantic descriptions. Even as the eye witnesses extraordinary beauty, I am incapable of finding the proper words to express this. (Photos, I hope, minimize…
Ramblin' through Dave's Garden 