And the Gardener Must Rest

It's that time of the year again, when you get a major dumping of snow that persists for days on end that you're forced not to do much in the garden, apart from the occasional inspection and shaking off of snow to make sure damage remains minimal.

Winter is not just about the cold and plants going into dormancy till spring arrives, it's also about the Gardener being forced by mother nature to take a well deserved rest after working (and playing) hard in the garden during the other seasons.

And by being 'forced' to rest, you get the chance to take it slowly and re-charge your batteries, as well as reflect on the growing season that's just gone past and plan ahead for the coming spring.

Saying that, it's not exactly total rest for us, we do work full time after all, it's just we'll have less gardening to do in our spare time. A perfect opportunity to just enjoy relaxing and being cosy inside, and catch up with friends and other hobbies, or so it seems.....

We're both hyper and always raring to do things outdoors so it's not always easy being forced not to do much outside. We have a mutual dedication to the garden which is why we are driven to keep doing as much as we can, gaining satisfaction on the process and end result.

Daft as it may be, there are fleeting moments in the summer when I long for the comforts of winter wherein you're forced to rest and just take it easy, usually at times when I've reached a point of exhaustion after a long day at work and still do some manual labour in the garden. But I just quickly remind myself of the cold and darkness of winter and I banish such thoughts, and as soon as I'm well rested I even regret having such silly thoughts! 

We do most of the hard lanscaping of the garden ourselves, both to minimise costs as well finding the satisfaction of building things ourselves, only calling in the professional if we really have to, as required by law or if the task is way beyond our capabilities.

But it's not all about slacking off in the colder months. Having more time to rest, I find my creative juices renewed and take the time to plan ahead for the coming year, writing down ideas and making sketches for the projects we're about to do. It's also the perfect time to do most of the research on the technical aspects of things, as well as sourcing and buying materials for our projects. Something which we did last weekend, we may not be able to do much outside but in a way accomplished something by buying insulation for our future Koi house.

And if you do get the itch to play with plants and do some gardening, there are the plants being overwintered inside and you can do some indoor gardening which we we also did last weekend as we've just bought some palm seedlings and we had to repot them all individually, sent bare rooted from Spain.

And winter is a good time to go on holiday too! If you find yourself not wanting to leave the garden behind in the summer months (and why should you when the garden is looking at its prettiest!), escape the cold for a few days by going somewhere warm in the winter! Oh, and there are the winter garden and Koi shows....

So saying all of that, do I really get to rest during the winter? Not really, I just find myself doing a bit less physically. But for someone who finds satisfaction in pottering, doing something is a form of rest :)

Posted in: snow