It’s too early! The first snow this year was too early as always. For it closes the door on that one last garden task pressing to be done. Fall is the season that imbues urgency as we hurry to get everything prepared for winter, to finish up, store up and protect.
Then with a jolt it’s over. Snow and cold force the gardener’s gears to shift overnight. As the fall feeling of urgency passes, the senses are flooded with relaxing warmth. All at once there is nothing that has to be done. Usher in the best gardening season of the year: Flight of the imagination.
Two bits of magic happen in the winter. First is the temporary suspension of animation. Since things will be just as they are for the next three months your imagination has a still life to play with. You can reconstruct any part of the garden in your minds eye being grounded by this brief still moment in what is usually an ever changing picture. Second is the x-ray vision that winter grants.
Without the cloak of the summer foliage the bones that give structure to the garden walls, its paths and the plant shapes are on full display. You can see the building blocks and understand why the garden is the way it is. Any changes of elevation that are often hidden during summer are immediately apparent.
During a quiet stroll through my backyard today I realized that by removing two branches from a large sugar maple and four small saplings from the narrow woodland at the back of our yard, that I could open a window through to a wonderful “barrowed” view of the neighbor’s field. With that little effort, our yard will seem twice as spacious as it is now.
In the summer looking from my son’s upstairs bedroom window I see a glorious old sugar maple. The winter view this morning looking through its canopy revealed the area in a way I had never noticed in the summer. The juncture of the back woodland and the stockade fence are two walls of an enchanted space whose ceiling is the canopy of this same sugar maple. All I need to do to develop a secluded nook for a garden bench and perhaps have a fire pit is to plant one more shrub wall to enclose an already two thirds finished space.
Gardening tools of the winter are camera, sketch pad, pencil and your imagination. Ask yourself and family members what their favorite places in the yard are and why. Next develop everyone’s wish list. Then let your imagination take flight. Planning to protect and improve your gardens’ strengths while creating some of the wished for areas is the most inspiring and productive gardening I do all year.
My yard is long, narrow, and flat and surrounded by sugar maple trees. On one side a stockade fence runs the length. I talked to my family about their likes and wishes and here is what I learned:
Favorite Things Wishes__
Spaciousness Fire pit- all
Place to play and throw balls Swimming pool- kids
Maple trees Chicken coup- Mom
Neighbors open fields at the back and side Tool shed- Dad and Mom
Privacy Quiet place to sit- all
Small patch of woods at the back
I took out a pencil and drew what we have now. Then I walked around thinking about the favorites to be sure to save or improve them. Next I looked for ways to work in space for the wished for places. When we get back into the season of shovels and rakes we will be ready with a plan that can transform the back yard into our own special place to live and play. What fun the dreaming? Try it for yourself!