There is a stark beauty to the winter landscape: tree limbs outlined against a bluebird sky on a sub-zero morning, the full moon lighting up the snow as if the outside lights are on, the clear views of our beautiful hills and mountains, and a white canvas that invites our imagination of the promise of the green season to come. My winter gardens host nature’s visitors to enjoy seed heads left on bee balm and Joe Pye weed. It is a delight to see the birds and squirrels looking for their meals amongst what I left standing for them in the gardens. What a beautiful sight to see two young deer sunning themselves, curled up comfortably in the woods beyond my back border garden, on a warm January afternoon. The plants that did not get cut back before the early arrival of winter offer a wild sculpture garden that changes with each winter storm.
The days are beginning to lengthen, and thoughts of getting back to tending the soil start to stir as paper whites bloom in the kitchen. The winter has been a challenge for many of our landscapes as ice storms, heavy snow, and high winds have torn limbs from pines, lilacs, and shrubs and left trees and shrubs in need of some attention to shape them into new and interesting features. Winter is a wonderful time to prune shrubs and trees as they are dormant, and our landscapes are more visually open, allowing space to really see that shrub and tree within the context of our gardens and yards.
I love winter, with all its fierceness and gentle beauty, the quiet of a full moon evening and the whistling of the north wind, the smell of a wood stove and skiing down a trail surrounded by snow covered branches on a blanket of fresh snow. Soon we will smell the scents of spring in a melting stream, the mud on our back roads, and the sweet steam rising from the sugarhouse. These events and many more nature bring us; are the perennial reminders of the promise of the green season to come. We are fortunate to live in the beautiful Upper Valley, where each season has a beauty and rhythm of its own.
Deer sunning themselves just past my back border. Nature has added a sculptural touch with the fallen pine bough.
Evergreens add color and texture to the winter landscape, even when covered with snow.
Birds (and squirrels, too!) find plenty of winter food at feeders and among the many seed heads left for them in the garden.