With an accumulation of snow in excess of six inches, the gardening season is officially, completely, finally over here at Squirrelhaven. Beneath this white blanket the garden will sleep.
Or will it? Frequently, after the first heavy snow melts, on a warm day in January, I will find fresh looking foliage on the Columbines. Also under the snow, the giant Snowdrops (Galanthus elwessi) will be sprouting and sometimes blooming.
I probably should have put down the shredded leaf mulch before this snowstorm, but I wasn't sure that the ground was frozen enough. It's been almost a decade since I put the mulch down before Christmas, as we've had a string of warm Novembers and Decembers. Once this snow melts, then I'll put down the mulch. In the meantime, the chickenwire cages stand ready for the leaves to protect the Hydrangea macrophyllas and the tree peony. Hopefully, this year I'll learn to hold off taking the mulch away from the Hydrangeas. Maybe.
12 comments:
Yes, we have to remind ourselves that "usually" the first snow doesn't last all that long, and we'll still have a few warmer days to finish up mulching and protecting plants from "real winter" -- January & February!
Snow here today, too!
Carol, May Dreams Gardens
Yeah - I remember that part! It's as if Mother Nature gives you a warning to let you know she really, really means it this time. Yet putting down the mulch too early might discourage a plant from entering dormancy in time.
Your garden looks really nice in the snow Mr McGregor's Daughter.
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
I always look forward to the days when I can walk out and find snowdrops and the greening of the columbines too. I like the snow pictures. No snow in my part of the world as yet. I am still picking up sticks from the big blow that brought you your snow.
Pam @ Digging says:
How pretty! In Austin it looks like fall, with a pretty good batch of fall color this year. It was hard to get used to seeing fall color in December when I first moved to Austin. Oranges and yellows don't quite work with red and green holiday trimmings.
Carol - because my memory is so bad, I have to keep referring to my garden journal to see what winter has been like recently. We in the Midwest just have to be ready for anything, as our weather is so unpredictable. It's interesting that you got snow but Lisa didn't.
Annie - you're right about putting the mulch down too soon preventing the plants from going dormant. I'm also concerned about them rotting, as I've killed Campanula persicifolia that way.
Lisa - Do you ever dig in the snow to find the snowdrops to see if they're blooming? I always feel like I'm cheating when I do that.
Pam - I guess you have to look at pictures from up North to get that "White Christmas" feeling. So many of our Christmas traditions are derived from Northern European cultures in which snow & darkness feature so prominently. I can't imagine living in the Southern Hemisphere & spending Christmas Day at the beach.
I'm spending half an hour going through blogs and keep finding snow. here the temperature's dropped a lot, but we rarely get snow before January. Still time to get the gloves and scarves out though ...
Hi again, Mr McGregor's Daughter :-)
How nice your garden looks with snow. Although, GBBD doesn't look too promising at the moment :-D
We don't have snow in my part of Scotland at the moment but who knows things can change so quickly!
I sure would dig in snow to find snowdrops if we ever had snow. We get so little snow. That is why I enjoy seeing snow pictures on the northern blogs.
Hi, Sue Swift! Thanks for visiting. I didn't know that Milan got snow at all, other than in the mountains. I was there in January or February only once, & it didn't seem any colder than Rome, where snow is an event to be memorialized in photos.
Shirl - we just got another inch, but I don't know how long it will last. The forecast calls for above freezing weather for several days next week. A white Christmas is never a sure thing around here.
Lisa - Do you live in the ice belt that goes through Champaign, IL, or are you farther south? After spending a winter sliding down the ice-coated sidewalks of U of IL, I decided that I'd rather deal with snow.
I really do love the snowy pictures... almost as much as I love sitting indoors and watching the snow fall! I also enjoy going outdoors on a warmer day when the snow "sticks" and making a snowman! ;-) Hopefully that child inside me never dies.
But, I also know that before we've had Winter very long, I'm ready for it to be over. I want to see green things growing and blooming and I'm ready for my shirtsleeves! :-)
Oops. Meant to mention that we're to expect ICE and YUCK tonight. I never look forward to That!
Shady Gardener - if you're longing for winter to be over already, you'd better book your flight to Florida or Arizona right now! I hate this ice we've been having. I keep repeating to myself, "Walk like a penguin."
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