Each Little World

Looking back at the gardening year: 2023

It was a very mixed year in terms of garden successes; a better year in terms of learning more about gardening in this changing climate. More importantly, acknowledging my bad habits online and in the garden.

I ordered a lot of plants online last winter. Come spring, it was clear that I had too many things to deal with at one time as we had frost for ages. That meant I had plants everywhere indoors and was wheeling big planters in and out of the garage day after day as night approached and bringing them out again in the morning. And that's after having potted them up in the garage and basement rather than outdoors on my work table. These up and down Spring temperatures seem to be one of our new norms.

I continued to add more shrubs, native and non, as a way to reduce maintenance, but keep the garden looking good. Last year's drought and extremely high temps reminded me that new plantings need an incredible amount of attention (and water) to survive the trauma of planting. I lost two expensive evergreens in short order and a third by late summer. Even old reliables suffered with the weather.

I may be the gardener and thus responsible, but I am going to blame my losses and other problems on our weather/climate issues. This year it was still too hot and dry to plant much in the autumn which historically has been an optimum planting time. I was still dragging hoses and watering cans around until it got cold enough that we had to turn off the outside faucets. 

I overwintered a Eucomis that I received as a door prize at a garden party in 2021 and fell in love with it. I want to try a couple more this year. I won't reorder any Calla lily which left me unenthused. In 2022 I planted a dozen Byzantine gladioli in two pots and swooned over them all season. So last year I planted 3 dozen in 5 pots and felt oppressed with watering and deadheading them. It was definitely a lesson in "less is more."

When I order plants online in the winter, I always know where I am going to put them so it feels like I have a plan. I am now going to admit that it is a dream and not a plan, given how many plants don't go where I intended. There's no room for them, they don't look good with their neighbors or they aren't getting all they require to succeed, like sun or moisture. Less ordering and more thinking needed. 

Now it's time for me to come up with a serious list of what needs attention in the garden and what plants or shrubs might I plan on getting, preferably locally. In the winter I am mentally gardening like a 35 year old. I need to remember that come spring, I am more than twice that age with a very large garden. Time to get real. 

My Christmas sister

Meg Brazill

December 25, 1952 — December 16, 2021

Remembering my dad

Today marks 25 years since my dad died. When you are growing up, you focus on the rules at home and what your parents allow you — or don't allow you — to do. You don't think much about your parents and your childhood in a more broad sense until you are a lot older. Which is to say, I did not realize what good parents — and what an idyllic childhood I had — until I was long out of college and heard the stories of other people's childhoods. 

My parents had four daughters and my dad was very supportive of us and made sure we all went to college so we could support ourselves and not have to depend on someone else to do so. Though we all married, I think none of us rushed into marriage since we indeed could manage on our own. That resulted in marriages that are still going strong. 

My dad with his younger brother, Jerry sometime in the 1920s. 

My dad (right) with his brothers Jerry (left) and Bill. Their oldest brother, James, died of pneumonia the year before. 

My dad served on destroyers in the US Navy during WWII. His first ship, the USS Long Island, took part in the battles of Midway and the Guadalcanal. 

My parents with all of us girls in a family portrait in the late 1950s.

Holiday greenery

I spent the afternoon of December 8 in the garden as it was unseasonably warm. It was a lovely day to work outside if you didn't assume climate change was responsible for the temperatures in the low 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

I wandered the garden with my clippers cutting evergreens to fan out around the big Mark Skudlarek plate by the front door. There's a long rolled-up tube of chicken wire curving behind the plate to hold the stems of the greenery.

Many of the evergreens in our garden are now mature enough that I had no qualms about cutting a few small branches off of any one of them. I ended up with the most mixed display I've ever had, using clippings from seven different evergreens. 

The mix includes Arborvitae, both Canadian and Japanese Hemlocks, blue Juniper, Scots pine, Russian cypress and an unknown lacy yellow Chamaecyparis. I put the Canadian Hemlock branches in with their silvery blue undersides showing for more contrast. 

I love how the blue tones echo the color of the plate.

I added a string of battery powered mini lights and then decided it needed something more. I tried a few still bright Allium seed heads.

But that bright pink seemed a bit much. So I calmed it down with a few bigger and much less colorful Allium seed heads and am generally pleased with the result. 

The only downside is that I learned via a discussion on the Wisconsin Hardy Plant Society FB page that the professionals said not to do any trimming while it is this warm. They noted the trees and shrubs are not dormant and the fresh cuts could prove harmful.

I love the education I get on that Wisconsin site, but I sure wish the subject had come up before I went clipping here and there. 

A Pattern Language

Christopher Alexander's "A Pattern Language" is a book about architecture, community and design solutions that came out of UC-Berkeley in the 1970s. I own a copy and have skimmed it over the years. I love patterns and recently kept noticing them, no matter where I was or what I was doing. So this is my "pattern language."

White Sound

When rain

whispers

it is snow.

 

— Julie O'Callaghan

Saturday night's light rain turned into snow sometime during the night. I sat on the couch admiring the garden Sunday morning and casually shot this photo with my phone through the window; thus the strange bit of reflected light. By late morning it had started to lightly rain again and most of the snow is gone this morning.

The strange weather continues with temps hovering around 40°F during the daytime hours this week; until Friday when the forecast says we'll hit somewhere in the 50°F's.

Over the weekend I told a gardening friend that I will no longer blame myself when plants in my garden die. From week to week for the last year we've had little of what used to be our "normal" weather. It's becoming extremely difficult knowing what to plant and what kind of weather to protect the plants from. At least my Amaryllis is putting on a gorgeous show to keep my spirits up.

Gardening in our violent world

“The gardens that have graced this mortal Eden of ours are the best evidence of humanity's reason for being on Earth. Where history unleashes its destructive and annihilating forces, we must, if we are to preserve our sanity, to say nothing of our humanity, work against and in spite of them. We must seek out healing or redemptive forces and allow them to grow in us. That is what it means to tend our garden.”

 

— Robert Pogue Harrison,

Gardens: An Essay on the Human Condition