I can’t remember if the honor of choosing Blithewold’s sweet peas was conferred on me or if I grabbed it like a greedy toddler (“Mine!”) but it’s one of those tasks that I enjoy so much it doesn’t feel like work. It reminds me of those years in Seattle when I made special trips to the Pike Place Market in June. I would walk the length at least twice in order to drink in the scent of thousands of sweet peas and choose the very best bouquet from among a dozen or so vendors. My handful of sweet peas had to have a good balance of dark colors, picotees, bi-colors, and pastels and at least a few rare apricot or orange blossoms to give it some pop. And it had to be at least $.50 cheaper than the priciest bunch.

Now I hem and haw over our seed order the same way. There must be a good balance of colors, stripes, picotees, etc; and a decent bargain in terms of number of seeds per packet, shipping rate, etc. I also feel I owe it to our visitors to make sure we have the best varieties: the newest and most interesting as well as the old favorites with the longest stems, biggest blossoms, truest color, and/or highest scent. I research availability, cross reference sources for price and try very hard to narrow my selection down to what might actually fit on the fence.

This year my search revolved around finding my Holy Grail. Back in 2007 I fell for one called ‘Nimbus’ that Sweet Pea Gardens hasn’t offered since. After failing last year to convince Unwins to change their policy about selling seeds to US customers, I thought I had given up. But ‘Nimbus’ will be on our order this year from another source, Enchanting Sweet Peas in CA. Their packets only contain 10 seeds, but their shipping cost is minimal and they offer price breaks the more varieties you order. Such a deal.

Now comes the hard part: choosing between sweet peas we’ve grown and loved, and new temptations. ‘Oban Bay’ I know is a gorgeous pale blue but could ‘Charlies Angel’, another pale blue one, possibly be prettier? Would our visitors appreciate as I would seeing the two varieties “trialed” together perhaps along with another pale favorite like ‘Blue Celeste’ or ‘Chatsworth’? Decisions, decisions… But it’s a difficulty worth savoring and one that, unlike any kind of forced choice made on a sinking boat or in a damaged country, reminds me how fortunate I am.

When you choose seeds do you opt for new varieties, familiar ones, or a bit of both? Do you savor the decision making process or tear your hair out a little? ‘Fess up, do you ever order more than you have room for?

My definition of “bloom” gets pretty loose this time of year and in order to participate in Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day, I am not above breaking all the rules. Given that it’s the middle of January and we’re in New England, it’s perfectly acceptable – preferable even – to have snow instead of an abundance of flowers in the gardens. And isn’t the snowscape as pretty in its own quiet way as any full summer garden?

And of course we’re lucky to have a greenhouse full of interesting plants, some in bloom, some not. I highly recommend taking a moment to focus on any houseplants you may have, or visiting a greenhouse (ours is open) whenever your eyes start to glaze over from too much catalog reading. I find it helpful to groom and water and fuss with plants when the gajillion varieties of basil suddenly start to sound like they might all be exactly the same only different, and when I can’t decide between ‘Violet Jasper’ and ‘Chocolate Stripes’ tomatoes.

Clarity always comes to me. (The answer is: both, and…!)  Does touching plants help you make your winter decisions too?

For lists and pictures of what might actually be in bloom around the blogosphere, visit May Dreams Gardens.

Along with taking a good look back at last year’s successes and failures (I’ll get to those later maybe) we gardeners take this time to look forward and dream a little. (Incidentally, we are probably at our most optimistic right now: in January – the “dead of winter.”  Just before another storm pig-piles more snow on the garden.) Gail and I have been gathering our thoughts before we open the catalogs, and started to volley some ideas for next years gardens back and forth across the table. (This might well be the very best part of our job.)

We have both come to realize that we’re not interested in gardening just for our own or our (human) visitors’ pleasure. I haven’t forgotten that is a public garden – stick with me here: we have just started noticing that we habitually use words like “nature”, “habitat”, “environment”, and “ecosystem” and of course you already know that we are head over heels for pollinators. In truth, welcoming pollinators, insects and birds into the garden is ultimately self-serving because wildlife is good for the garden and what’s good for the garden is great for its visitors – as well as its gardeners.

So this year we’re considering buying or making bird, bat, butterfly, toad, and mason bee houses and as usual, we’ll be planting a lot of flowers. We’ll also make some changes to our maintenance practices to allow more seed heads to remain. All of these intentions will be part of how we form our designs, which we have every hope, will be as abundant and beautiful as ever.

And because we’re still on the sustainable gardening bandwagon (and can’t imagine ever hopping off of it) we’ll make a concerted effort to reduce our water needs by selecting plants with last summer in mind; we’re researching low growing and steppable lawn alternatives to plant in one of the Display Garden beds; and planning to keep invasive weeds out of the native wildflower area behind the summer house in the Bosquet. And because we love our human visitors too – and couldn’t do any of this if it weren’t for you, we’re imagining shady relief from blazing summer sun in our container bed, and planning to install more crowd pleasing roses as well as irrigation in the Rose Garden.

Are you starting to look forward and plan this year’s garden? Do you have a particular area of focus or any new intentions? Is there anything you’d like to see at Blithewold that I haven’t mentioned?