A Week of Winter Gardening

Cold – wind – rain – snow – sunshine –  we saw everything this week.  But when the rain stopped I headed outside to tend to the garden. It’s amazing what you can accomplish in a short amount of time;  time that is therapeutic to the garden and also to the gardener.

My first task was to prune and relocate the roses.  I’d planted them a few years ago in the front of the house and my husband (the weeder in chief) complained they reached out and grabbed him when he tried to do his work. I agreed they weren’t in the best location and would move them.  But where?  So this opened up the next set of chores: to find space in the garden beds in back. Gardening is like that – one thing leads to another. .

I’d start with the herb bed which was wild and overcrowded.  I’d remove the woody plants and send them to the recycle heap but save and transplant the best – the lavender, rosemary and mint. The vegetables would take their old spot and I’d plant the roses where the vegetables had been.  (Isn’t that what a real gardener does?  Just keep moving the same plants around and around year after year?)

Benji supervised the action and helped himself to some of the mint too.

Here is my new bed of roses with rosemary and lavender planted between – I hope they’re all happy together.

I finished up just in time. Today we got our first snow of the year as large, fluffy, wet, flakes blanketed the trees and garden.

Fortunately it didn’t last.  An hour later blue skies and sunshine returned and everything looked washed and manicured.

There’s still much more to do of course. We’ll add compost to the vegetable bed. Carrots, lettuce, squash and beans will be planted at the proper time.  Tomatoes and potatoes will be planted later in whisky barrels.  The strawberry bed in front needs care and thinning out.  But there’s plenty of time for all that.

Looking forward to spring!

~  Susanne