What else Wisconsin gardeners do in winter

I actually do the following things all year long, but winter is when I have the down time to really immerse myself in all the paperwork of gardening. I unearth all my scribbles on scraps of paper where I've noted plants to buy and plant combos to try. Winter is when I start a new garden journal and make i.d. cards for all the plants I've just ordered on line. 

I don't know if any other Wisconsin gardeners do these things or how many gardeners anywhere do them. But if you've been reading this blog since its early days then you know that I have records going back to the beginning of the garden in the early 1990s. I just began Volume Twenty of my garden journals.

Every plant has its own index card that tells where and when I bought it, what it cost and where it's planted. I love knowing that the row of Euonymous europaeus 'Aldenhamensis' trees on the west side of the house came from the old Heronswood Nursery and cost $8.00 each. They were about the size of my closed fist when I bought them and now reach above the roof.

 This degree of documentation probably sounds excessive, bordering on compulsive. But as someone who spent years writing about gardens in print media and giving numerous presentations on the subject, I needed to know the identity of every plant in my garden that I wrote and talked about, as well as where people might buy one like it. My copious records answered all the questions anyone might ask. It's been years since I really needed to keep these kinds of records, but once I started I found I enjoyed it too much to stop.

Ask me anything. I can give you all the details of the recent driveway project, like the fact that more than 500 tons of material was moved in and out during the construction. Ninety tons of rocks and pavers are visible in the finished landscape and a similar amount's buried. The garden has 224 trees and shrubs. Cool, huh?! Or crazy . . .

Comments

[Lisa at Greenbow]

COOL. I love it. I don't do index cards. That would be a great way to do it but I have lists, a notebook with lists, I have journals with tags.
I get out my journals from time to time and look back. "What was I thinking?" ha...
This is the perfect time to get set up for the coming season of garden immersion.

[Susan Adler Sobol]

Cool, Linda! Crazy cool!
Susan

[Linda from Each Little World]

Lisa — ​It is always a interesting to see what we were thinking and why we planted or did what we did. Sometimes helpful and sometimes just confusing.

[Linda from Each Little World]

Thanks Susan. I do enjoy it but I am thinking that perhaps I will stop at the end of this year when all our big garden projects are finished.

[Jane Miller]

Love the index card organization! Also intrigued by the beautiful pillow in the first shot, what kind of fabric is this?

[Loree / danger garden]

I love this! I wish I had that level of info stored away. My tags are just taped into a notebook organized by year and area in the garden. On one had I think it would be interesting to have noted the price, on the other hand that information could be used against me if someone decided to total up the expenditures! (A few years ago I did find my husband counting a season's worth of plastic plant pots kept for recycling, and then doing a little math. Those pots are recycled quickly now and not left around to count!)

[Linda from Each Little World]

Jane —I think it is just a synthetic. But it's narrow strips that are woven into a pattern and then have sequins holding some of the joins in place. Found it at Rubin's a few years ago so you know it is not really top of the line — just looks that way!

[Linda from Each Little World]

Loree — Not sure if I actually mentioned it but we do have a garden budget based on the average spending over 20 years. Of course that includes a couple of huge projects like the pond and the driveway. We don't travel or have kids or pets, so we think of that money as something that can be spent on the garden. It's our giant art project!

[Beth @ PlantPostings]

I'm impressed! I'm nowhere near that organized. Heck, half the time I have no idea what cultivar I have. But that's because most of this garden was planted before I got here, and the previous owners didn't use plant markers and didn't leave any info. That's OK, it's been fun to figure out over the years, and that's part of the reason I started the blog--to document the plants. But gosh, how wonderful that you have it all documented so well! Kudos!

[Linda from Each Little World]

Beth — ​Since we started our garden from scratch it was easier to keep track of things. And my husband was always asking what this or that plant was, so I started keeping track. And I never could have written my column for all those years ​without such records.