WHAT TO DO IN THE WINTER GARDEN

The nights are cold, rainy and snow is falling onto some gardens. Tomatoes are a memory, the lettuce has finished giving us an early winter crop, kale is hardy and still perky, but the rest of the garden is beginning to sleep. We still have work to do in the garden, cleaning up, taking out spent crops, annuals, and mulching for the colder months to come. The holidays are over and our time is more free to do this intensive work.

We can now enjoy days and evenings going through those wonderful gardening catalogs, or perusing online fantastic perennials we must have in our 2011 flower and vegetable gardens. We dream again of lovely, sunny gardening days. It will heat up pretty fast as we wander into July 2011!

Yet our seasonal gardens always have something new to show us. Wisteria's leaves turned color in the fall and this spring bloomed in lavender loveliness, so fragrant! They catch the morning sun, swaying gently in the breeze.  Our plants actually bloomed twice this year! Lovely cascades of blooms, so fragrant, delightful in a garden. The vines twine their nakedness around the trellis and the wire fencing around the chicken yard. Soon it will sprout new leaves in spring...not that far away!

Violas, rosemary, lavender, all still bloom cheerfully through the cold winter months, in fact, my oregano just bloomed again! Fragrant, hardy, it will be nice trying its evergreen leaves for cooking through the coldness of winter. The trailing geranium on our front porch is perched on an old-time kitchen stool, happy to spill out of her planter and dazzle passer-bys during the summer. Winter brings only green leaves but I so remember those blooms that she still brings me joy in the memory.

Great time now to plan your spring and summer gardens; a great selection of bulbs is still available at most nurseries. Plop them into the ground before it freezes! Select trees and shrubs for great seasonal year-round color, and interesting limbs. Bare root roses can now be ordered so you get that exact special rose for your garden, or to give to a friend, or loved one. The new selections are wonderful, the varieties, colors and perfumes are award winners. Try something exciting and new in 2011.

Bulbs require such little work and give such pleasure. Keep up with your winter garden chores, trim straggly plants, prune shrubs, and keep perennials tidy. Now is a good time to bring house plants indoors once nighttime temps are below 50 degrees; it's cold at night! Have fun in your garden! Look around and see what needs to be added, moved, or enhanced with a new bright neighbor! Garden With Your Kids! Click on the Star for some tips to create an interesting garden.

           

Our climbing red rose is magnificent!