Musings on horticultural therapy and the soothing effects of plants and nature
Flowers are always on the supermarket list this time of year. Part of Juana’s Winter survival strategy is to decorate as many windowsills as possible with fragrant and flowering plants.The kitchen sill has daffodils (Narcissus), primrose (Primula vulgaris), a lone cyclamen, and my grasshead. Many of the tiny pots get cycled out every couple of […]
With the big melt we are having, this thyme plant emerges from the snow. I haven’t seen it for a month as successive little snows have kept it hidden from view next to our primitive snow gauge. This type of melt is typical for February: a brief warming spell soon quashed by more snow and […]
Ice is beautiful but potentially frightening at the same time. The outdoors are bejeweled with freezing rain. We are lucky as the amount of precipitation is slight so it adds a only slight, shiny glaze to plants rather than a potentially heavy and dangerous coating. The Japanese maple (Acer palmatum) branches are enveloped in ice […]
Amazingly, a potted rosemary (Salvia rosmarinus) that as a lark I left in the greenhouse for the Winter continues to live on. I did not expect this as we have had many nights where the temperature gets down to the single digits Fahrenheit. In the past, we have attempted to bring rosemary plants into the […]
Many of my clients at Ann’s Place miss out on the tapestry of the facility’s Winter garden. From the parking lot, the back yard and adjoining wetlands is lovely and peaceful. Walking around the property clockwise from the front door, the winterthur viburnum (Viburnum nudum) is still full of fruit, one of the last bushes […]
After all the snow is shoveled, Juana and Charlotte decide to take a tumble to make snow angels. They try to coax me to fall in the cold and frigid snow. I decline their kind offer.
The unrelenting cold is hopefully breaking but it is putting everything to task. The birdbath has but a tiny zone of water that the birds queue up to drink. I need to refill the liquid-zone at least once a day. I decide to take a look at the cold frame and all the frozen moisture […]
Bone chilling cold. Taking the compost out, the temperature, or lack of one, takes my breadth away. At 10 F in the shade, each puff hurts. When I exhale through my nostrils, little stalactites of ice form on my mustache. To me that is the sign of cold. Most the plants stoically stand, unmoved much […]
You know it is cold outside when the melt off the roof is frozen coming out of the downspout. This morning it hit a low of 12 F and it is likely to get even colder later in the evening. One of nature’s thermometers that can tell you an approximate temperature is the rhododendron. There […]
I don’t take light for granted in Winter. Between the many cloudy and inclement days, it greets us far too infrequently. This morning, the low-rising sun shines straight through the solarium’s windows hitting the paperwhite (Narcissus papyraceus), illuminating its fragrant petals. The flower glows in the clean, morning daylight.The light brightens the nearby amaryllis spikes […]