At a gathering of gardening colleagues the other day, I was joking with the editor of a local garden publication about the current snow situation in our respective yards. She remarked about how pointless all the articles about planting for winter interest are when the snow is up to our waists.
She's right. It's more envy than enthusiasm when we come across yet another magazine spread with these dazzling displays of winter beauty. These winter wonderlands are often in England or at least Ohio.
It's not that there's no winter beauty here, it's that we have it in October. That's when the first frosts are outlining the leaves with icy glitter like so much diamond dust. Or in November when those first snows dab trees, roofs and fences with picturesque frosting, like a living gingerbread village.
By now most features in my garden are just barely recognizable blobs.
Then too soon the snow gets worn, dirty and dingy. At home a little freezing and re-freezing forms that brittle crust that hurts your feet when you step through it. The cul de sac keeps shrinking as the plows push the lumpy white stuff into ever smaller circles. Ironically you think, we need some more snow, just to tidy it up.
I know I can't complain. A fellow blogger here at YV writes about living waaaaaaaay north and how they just carry on through the cold. So, I know when to shut my mouth.
But it's scenes like these that make us gardeners grumble...
For now my winter interest is limited to the colorful and frozen dispatches from my dog, poor thing, he doesn't venture far.Until then I know that spring will come eventually and my garden will reappear. It's under there somewhere.
