Gardening in the snow?

Well, last weekend the snow was gone and I was sitting on the deck, getting a mild sunburn and contemplating the flowers I would soon be planting. Then on Thursday it snowed again. And a day later, the snow is still here. AAAAARRRRGH!!!

This time of year I get so excited about gardening. It's been a long winter.

Last year we cut down a beautiful chokecherry tree in our backyard because it was diseased. I loved and hated that tree. In the spring, the blossoms are beautiful and smell heavenly. Then the chokecherries ripen and fall all over our stone patio. Ugh. But an unexpected benefit is all the additional sun we now have in the yard. I’ve always had to choose shade-loving plants, so I have lots of hostas and I always plant impatiens. I love orange and yellow color combinations and it’s hard to find orange and yellow flowers that like the shade. I buy flats of orange impatiens. A few years ago when they came out with a yellow impatiens I was ecstatic, but they’re really hard to find.

So this year it’s exciting because I’m not limited. I’ve already been flipping through the catalogues marking the sun-loving flowers I want to try this year. I can’t wait to go the garden centers and smell the freshness of growing plants and see the colors. I love putting together different combinations. Sometimes I’ll make a planter of different flowers all in the same shades, like a scarlet geranium, red petunias and red verbena, or one year I did a planter with all white flowers and all green and white variegated leaves. Other times I like contrasting color combinations. I love red, yellow and purple together. I like greenery that’s interesting too, like the Vancouver geranium with it’s variegated leaves and that bronze sweet potato vine.

But it looks like it will be a while before I’ll be planting anything…sigh.
Kelly JamiesonComment