Seed packets are starting to jam up our mailbox so Gail and I are getting busy clearing the desk and making the final cuts to our plant orders. All of us, especially those of us who aren’t made of money, know that plants don’t grow on trees. These things are expensive – and for good reason. We all know what kinds of resources go into growing plants and we’re willing to pay the price for what we truly, madly want. But budgets of actual money constrain us into making either-or choices instead of both-and. We just can’t afford to buy every little (and big) thing we circled. – Which is good because where would we put them all? I really enjoy this part of the process because it sharpens the edge of my desire. By the end of the culling sessions we have a much better idea of what we want the gardens to look like.

We’re making other cut backs (cuts back?) too. February light in the greenhouse is so much higher and warmer than January light that it always surprises me. Most of our greenhouse denizens don’t go into a full die-back dormancy over the winter, but growth generally slows way-way down especially in our coolest house. Until right about now. It’s like April in the Rose Garden – time to cut back the plants, like fuchsias, that are just now starting to send out a new flush of growth for the season.

Outside, new cuts have opened patches of sky we’ve never seen before. Last week, Fred and Dan took down a rapidly declining English oak that shaded part of the Rock Garden. That has opened up all sorts of new opportunities for growth and change. – We might even need some different plants…

And finally, have you cut branches to force yet? I almost prefer blooming sticks of forsythia inside than out. They’re so easy and quick – a couple-three weeks in sun and warm water and they’ll be golden. I’m not sure if we’ll have such easy luck with the Paulownia buds (on the right side of the bucket)… Remember – and I only say this because there’s a thief in our neighborhood – always get permission before taking anything from any property that doesn’t truly, actually belong to you.

Last night Gail and I made a trek to Boston to hear a lecture given by Dan Pearson (co-sponsored by Arnold Arboretum and Trinity Church). If you don’t already know of Dan Pearson, he is one of the rock stars of the horticultural world – a garden designer from the UK who works around the world and has written for Gardens Illustrated, The Observer, The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Times as well as a few books – most recently one called Spirit: Garden Inspiration. He spoke about a life-long fascination with the spirit of landscapes and has traveled the world to find the places that resonate for him (and would for any of us): Untouched places like a remote part of New Zealand where trees have grown on trees that have grown on trees that have grown on epiphytes that have grown on trees – for millennia; barely touched places like the ancient Druid altar of Dartmoor; places where nature intersects with human intervention – like the Moss Temple garden in Japan where nothing is extraneous and you must participate in a ritual chant before entering; and places entirely man-made like Chicago’s Cloud Gate sculpture.

Nothing Pearson said was particularly earth shattering – in fact, he’s not really into that sort of thing. His designs have a light touch because he’s not interested in making “indelible marks” on the landscape. He talked about how the landscape – our gardens – can be places that connect us to the earth – in the details, and in the passage of time. Landscapes can humble us and help clear our mind. He mentioned an annual walk he takes in southern Spain, where for 2 weeks he walks the same path (to a remote limestone cliff beach. Please.) and every day as his eyes become accustomed to the landscape, more and more details are revealed to him. I know that people visit (and re-visit) Blithewold for the solace of a comfort-zone connection to nature, and although it might not be Andalusia by any stretch, regular walks here – anywhere – can be every bit as meditative.

Some of the places he’s been -and designed- were spare to the point of austere. But elegant and perfect in every way. Gail and I spent the train ride home talking about the mental toughness test we’d have to keep from embellishing some of these places. We, I think, focus a lot on long seasons of interest (more blooms, no waiting!) whereas he celebrates the ephemeral. – It seems difficult to reconcile being a plant junkie with a nature inspired design and an elegant touch. (But I suspect Pearson’s a bit of a junkie too – he just has more self-control perhaps.)

He is so immersed in his work that by now it is – and maybe it always was – instinctual. When someone asked about his actual design process, Pearson said that it’s like when you meet someone for the first time, you know very quickly if you have things in common and whether or not a lasting relationship will follow. Same thing with a garden. He just knows it. I realize now that I have completely lost sight of the first impression I had of my own garden – before it was mine, which was a sublime feeling of being perfectly “at home”. That is what should whisper the changes I make there.

Do you look for or feel the spirit in places? – Where? Are you a garden whisperer?

For a mid-January Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, as much as I always want to show off greenhouse flowers, I think it’s more honest to say that the only thing in full-full bloom around here is desire. A raft of seed catalogs is spread across the potting shed – there’s no bare surface – and Gail and I are writing endless wish-lists.

Seed companies just know how to get us. There’s the picture – that tiny image of a perfect flower. When I squint my eyes at those little pictures I can only imagine that this could be the plant – the one! - that will make the garden more beautiful – or now that even I am thinking about growing some food at home – more productive than ever before. The description always backs that up and practically guarantees that if we buy a packet of this particular seed, we’ll live happily ever after and be rich beyond our wildest dreams and the weather will be perfect every day.

Am I wrong? Don’t the words “New!” and “nonstop” and “juiciest” affect you the same way? But we’re all adults here. Just like cruising the personals for our dream date (not that I’m admitting to ever having done that…) we have learned to read between the lines. “Self sows”? Uh huh, that one will be back like a bad penny, like it or not. And we check references. If it’s offered by different companies, which picture is the clearest? Which description sounds the likeliest? How many seeds for how many dollars? Is it a match made in heaven? And we’ve been burned before so we’re cautious. “Purple” might mean hot pink and “cream” might just be bright blazing yellow. But we’re also willing to take our chances.

We’re in the honeymoon phase of the relationship with our seed orders. They’re all perfect. They all have tremendous potential. We’re totally in love. Right now, in my mind’s eye the garden has never been more glorious and perfect and in the fullest of bloom. It’s when the orders arrive, that the real work of the relationship begins. Our hearts might be broken right away by poor germination; the relationship could just damp-off; or worse, the plant might grow and flourish but not live up to our expectations. If only we had seen a full-body shot rather than a close-up… but the seed companies know how to get us. And thank goodness – in January we need their blooms to build our dreams on.

Is your dream garden in full bloom right now? (For a look at what’s really in bloom today around the world, visit May Dreams Gardens.)

Gail and I need a little more time to gather thoughts before I dive into posts about the decade’s best plants. Because I ventured outside on some of the chilliest days to grab at pictures with my mittens on, I’ll give those to you today instead. You might want to make a cup of tea and put on your thickest sweater before looking…

Even though I’ve never considered this my favorite season, I have realized that I am very grateful to live in a climate that has a true winter. I need a real break from the garden to recharge my brain and body. – And if it was warm enough to work outside I would have trouble staying in.

A month or two ago I couldn’t really imagine having any fresh ideas for these gardens or even my own (which I think about constantly even while I’m at work). I was fried. But after only a couple of weeks of intensive indoor regrouping, I have enough thoughts in my head that if I don’t write them down they’re likely to be pushed off the shelf by the next thing. I definitely need help to kick-start the idea process. Before allowing ourselves even a glance at seed catalogs, Gail and I always take a look through the year’s gardening magazines, which we hadn’t yet given ourselves time to read, and we pull out the ancient back issues too along with our favorite books. – Because everything old is new again. And of course I am catching up on blog reading. Amazingly, it doesn’t take much for the ideas to start germinating. A plant suggestion here, a photo there and I’m already completely jazzed to get back in the garden.

Do you take a winter intermission too? Self or climate imposed? Where do you find the seeds for your ideas?

It is generally acknowledged that the difference between being temporarily pretty and eternally beautiful has something to do with bone structure. Like our own skin, which may or may not be wrapped around a Katherine Hepburn-esque skeleton, our garden hangs on its bones too. But although no plastic surgeon is truly capable of changing those of us unlikely to age gracefully, I think it is possible for everyone to have a garden every bit as timelessly handsome as, say, Gregory Peck. All we need, aside from a plan, is … time. Plus patience. (Isn’t it interesting that, when it comes to standards of beauty in a garden, age is usually a benefit rather than a liability?)

It’s easy to recognize an eternally beautiful garden. During the height of a colorful summer, you might not even be aware of why it’s so beautiful. But over the winter it hits you that the garden is every bit as stunning, stark-raving naked. Some properties (like Blithewold) are sublimely situated and while, like the curl in one’s hair, that’s definitely part of beauty, it’s not the be-all and end-all. What the garden really needs is structure within its perimeter and view to keep it from being as boneless and boring as our cutting bed in winter. It needs permanent elements – trees with muscles, rocks maybe, buildings (most of us have a house in the middle of our garden if not a garage and sheds too), and some might say to include a water feature – anything worth looking at even after the summer’s skin is shed. And those features should fit the scale of the garden’s face like expressive eyebrows and chiseled cheeks.

The last leaves haven’t even fallen yet but I’m already jazzed to think about Gregory Peck – I mean the gardens’ bone structure. The Display Garden still has a ways to go before it’s truly handsome in its own right but now it’s much easier to see what it needs. — My own garden at home cries out for eternal beauty too and there is where my patience will be truly tested: Good bones take such a long time to build.

Does your garden have good bone structure? Do you have plan(t)s to improve it?