Winter Gardening

Another lovely day in the garden! After being cooped in the house and not being able to do much in the garden with the recent cold spell and snow in here, the weather has been mild enough this weekend to melt most of the snow and give some relief to the plants, not to mention the gardeners!

The snow and series of frosts have finally put all of the herbaceous and deciduous plants into winter dormancy, so lots of tidying was done, cutting back dead vegetation before they rot and go disgusting, and gathering some more leaves that have fallen since the last time we tidied up. We have to be careful that these leaves from deciduous plants don't swamp out some of the smaller, understory plants. Rather than remove them all, we just reduce and redistribute them. Makes a free mulch, not to mention bringing back organic goodness to the soil which is how it should be.

It takes awhile to get used to gardening in the winter I must say, you'll have to wrap up warm and get used to a little bit of freeze on your fingertips in the process, stopping only when it gets too painful. I could wear gloves all the time but it's never the same, and I could never seem to do a good job on more delicate tasks whilst wearing them.

It's also during this period you appreciate the evergreens; beautiful exotic (and not so exotic!) plants that look lovely and green all your round despite the cold weather, providing structure and cheer to the garden on cold, dreary days. And with lesser distraction I get the chance to inspect them more closely too!

The nursery area in summer.

I also spent some time this morning tidying up in our utility area, which most of the time I refer to as the 'nursery'. It's the least photogenic part of our garden because it is what it is, a utility area. But a utility area doesn't have to be untidy, and I pride myself of being able to maintain this area as neat as possible.

And this utility area is also our nursery where I can group together plants that are still to be planted out, as well as stack new acquisitions. At least by being in the same place I'm more able to take care of them more efficiently whilst I think of places to eventually plant them in. Not to mention that being grouped together, you get a sense of pleasure looking at a plant collection.

The nursery obviously looks so much nicer in the summer, but for now the cloche has to be in position there to protect some of them. Today I tucked in some small specimens of big leafed rhododendrons such as R. macabeanum and R. sinogrande, hardy here but since I've got plenty of space in the cloche I might as well pop them in there.

And our lovely kitten Knickers has kept us company as usual, or rather climbed and explored about in the area where we are at any moment. Although adventurous, quite a relief he's been sensible enough not to stray too far from us. And no more pond accidents this time!

And today I've actually seen him go up a tree for the first time, and got back down again on his own :)

Mark

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