The holidays are behind us. We are recovering from another season of lights, music, and fun. We are now in “take a deep breath mode” to find out where we are with all the zillion things that got put on the back burner while we took a break from the mundane to enjoy the seasonal festivities. The garden is somewhere at the bottom of that pile.

What garden?  You ask yourself. New England is frozen, a picture of gray and white.  The garden from last year has all but disappeared. Not a spot of green to be seen anywhere unless you count the stately evergreens in your neighbors garden or across the street in the conservation land. The snow covered branches from Wednesday’s soft precipitation has turned everything into the classic picture postcard “winter wonderland” that inspire artists and poets and warm the hearts of all snow enthusiasts, aka skiers and ice-fishing buffs, children who love to play and build snowmen, and dogs who love to roll in it and burrow their noses, while their owners rub their hands and valiantly do a version of the rock ‘n’ roll to avoid turning into an icicle!

I must confess I enjoy the winterscape.  (As long as I do not have to shovel any snow!) It gives me time to enjoy the garden from a different perspective.  The white snow-laden branches of the maples and the magnolia have a beauty of their own that does not need the gardener’s touch.  I can sit back and take in the pristine beauty in all it’s splendor. Snow is nature’s way of giving the garden and gardeners (and probably non-gardeners also) a break, a chance to renew their energies, and make plans for the spring and summer garden.  The forced hibernation gives me a chance to relax and reflect on the garden past and the garden to come.

So I look at the beds and try to remember which plants bloomed last year and more importantly what I want to do this year.  Do I really want to re-do that front patch?  Or do I want to invest more in the vegetable garden? And how about cutting down that old crab-apple tree that has stopped flowering? If I do so then I may lose my shade garden lovingly nurtured over ten years. Or should I just spend my energy on maintaining what I have by keeping my garden weed-free? (Now that is a pipe dream if ever there was one!)

Organized gardeners will be able to whip out photographs of their seasonal garden and point out the exact location of each plant in their gardenscape.  Or at the very least they will be able to show you a hand drawn map with the patches marked out clearly and with the appropriate plant names.  Traditional gardeners will often have a graph paper with one-inch squares neatly demarcated to show size and planting pattern.

I tend to rely on my memory –not always the most reliable tool when one is trying to conjure up a vision of what happened last spring!  While the bushes and the raised vegetable bed are easy to spot, I am hard-pressed to think of what other perennial lies dormant, and where.  That is when I take out pen and paper. I draw or rather try to draw.  The more accurate description of what I really do is pencil in some meandering lines that are dotted and crossed at random points to show where I think a particular plant grew.  I resolve every year never to go through this exercise again – spending half my energies in trying to recall instead of focusing on new plants.

 And this year I have made good on my resolution.  I have started a -list of all the plants I would like to have. I may not remember where I have planted what but I do know which new ones I would like to grow.  I have also availed of a chart where each square represents a one-foot square plot, which I hope eventually will hold the master plan. I am also perusing seed and plant catalogs. With their beautiful photographs and succinct descriptions, these promotional materials help with visualizing the garden in full bloom.  Not to mention the fact, it inspires me to add to the wish list!

In the meantime I look out of the window and take heart.  It’s January and the days are growing longer.  And under all that snow, the spring flowers are raring to go! The hellebores, crocuses and scillas will just show up one of these days.  

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