Garden — check
Gardening clogs — check
Plants — check
Pruners, and gloves — check
Soil mix — check Spring — well, it is coming eventually, so — check. There hasn't been much said about my garden lately. Certainly I don't have beautiful stands of red, and yellow Siberian dogwood branches gracefully reaching for the clouds. And tasteful tussles of sweetly fragranced Hamamelis, witch hazel unfurling it's crinkled blooms.
Nor do I have sweet box, Sarcococca to scent my deck. It's glossy black berries, and creamy blooms such a harbinger of the coming spring. Almost overpowering with its fragrance when massed in plantings. It is enough to stop you in your tracks, and nose into the air, ask, what is that delicious scent?
When you patio garden you do miss out on some things, but many of the joys of gardening are still there. And so much closer to you than the gardens that spread themselves through much larger properties.
But I can do my garden inventory from my bedroom windows, without ever taking a step outside. Making notes on what flourished, and what didn't. This is a good thing, because they don't call it the wet coast for nothing. I still haven't taken down my faded pots of last summers annuals. So there they are on full display for each chickadee that comes by. Those brown twigs were the beautiful coral shade of snapdragon, and that rustling brown ball, was a stunning soft pink hydrangea. We are slightly protected from full view, so the temptation to just forget it all, and ignore it is easy. Especially since late last summer I more or less just gave it all up. Too hot, too much watering, and too much going on in my non gardening life. The plants however just carried on, stiff upper lip, and fading leaves.
And here they are still, stiff upper branches, faded brown leaves, and muddy soil.
Hoping for spring.
And a visit from that garden inventory taker.