Even though the daffodils are still blooming their little hearts out I can’t help looking forward to the next thing(s) following hot on their heels. The tulips and cherry trees are just getting going, winter hazel and crabapples are on the way. I’m pretty sure that the spring display is just going to keep getting more and more spectacular. More colorful, anyway. It may be too early to tell, but at least right now my favorite tulips are a color reverse pair in the Cutting Garden — ‘Gavota’, which is red with yellow edges and its opposite, ‘Boston’. And I’m really enjoying ‘Silverstream’ in the Rose Garden. Even though we planted them in the herb garden last year (and again this year) I had forgotten that they start out a paintbox mix of flecked yellows, pinks and reds. So pretty.

And now that we have cut back, tidied, and weeded (mostly) the gardens, divided and redistributed perennials and moved some shrubs like playing musical plants, we’re ready for what comes next. Planting new things! It’s a thrill to finally see the available real estate and begin to envision where the gardens will take us this year that I can hardly wait. But our perennial plant orders haven’t arrived yet and local nurseries haven’t quite stocked up or opened doors yet.

So in the meantime we’re using our gotta-plant energy to catch up on greenhouse work and think about moving out. In fact, the sweet peas went outside last week, ready for planting in the next couple of days, weather permitting. Next out will be all of the nearly-hardy perennials and shrubs like rosemary, phormium (some are out already and didn’t mind the touch of frost the other night), farfugium, camellias, and various and sundry salvias like S. guaranitica and S. leucantha. We’re really on a roll now even though we have to hold our horses a little.

What’s next in your garden? Are you ready to plant new things yet or are you still tidying, weeding, dividing and redistributing (like I am at home)?

Did anyone else hear Punxsutawney Phil’s Groundhog Day prediction as a rallying cry? If spring is truly right around the corner, we’d better get busy. That said, any of Phil’s kin living in my backyard would have nipped back to the burrow for a longer winter… But I’m not inclined to procrastinate winter work – just in case – and I’d always rather think spring will come sooner than later anyhow. So we’re checking our tool inventory to make sure we’re prepared to dig in, counting our incoming seed packets, and getting our plants ready too.

Although it seems too soon to say it, I think the light has begun to change. The sun is noticeably higher in the sky and even though the air temperature is wicked cold, the sun at least makes it look warmish outside. And it’s definitely warmer inside. The greenhouses are getting into the 60′s and 70′s and the plants are loving it so much that it’s time to cut them back.

Cutting our tender perennials (the salvias, stachytarpheta, heliotrope, African blue basil, cupheas, fuchsias, and plectranthus to name most of our favorites) back now to a low framework — some 12″ from the pot or less depending on the size of the plants — will give them a chance to push out fresh bushy growth well before they go in the ground in May. And I hope they’ll look less naked for our official opening days in April than they would if we waited another couple of weeks. (Meanwhile, don’t forget, the grounds and greenhouse are still actually open to the public.) There are one or two other benefits to cutting back now: when we lop off the tenderest new growth we evict the worst of the aphid and whitefly infestations without having to spray insecticidal soap or neem oil concoctions — which we resist doing when the sun’s out because the leaves can so easily burn. And any tips that aren’t infested can go straight into the cutting bench for more, more, more.

Outside, Nature has been helping with the winter pruning. The sun is suddenly shining in the bamboo grove classroom, which was opened to the sky when half of a huge Norway maple came down in last week’s blow. No doubt the grove will recover when the new shoots shoot up in May/June, though the rest of the busted tree will have to come down at some point.

Are you working hard to prepare for spring? Has Nature been “helpful” in your garden too this winter?

The plants in the greenhouse are more ambitious than I am. If I possibly could, I would spend the short, dark days of December curled up on the couch. But our plants are making use of what little sunlight is on offer, along with the eternal-spring (relative) warmth of supplemental radiant heat, and actually growing. Go figure. The cuttings we took in September are well-branched and blooming. The ones we took in October and potted up last month have produced three or more sets of leaves. And now they all need pinching to keep their focus on growing more than flowering. And there’s no way I can cut these plants back without turning those beautiful tips into more cuttings. They get full credit for keeping me off the couch.

Taking cuttings of our cuttings is on the list of to-dos every December despite the fact that low light and lower temperatures will make them take longer to root. Some of them might not make it. But from the ones that do, we’ll take more cuttings in the spring. That way, as the plants we already made grow and become pot stressed and unhappy, we’ll have a rotation of fresh plants to take their place if need be. (Though we do often plant even the oldest, woodiest, worst looking plants because they take off like the picture of health once they go in the ground.)

But I can’t let myself go crazy propagating because space is tight in the greenhouse and we don’t need more of everything. We also don’t altogether know what we’ll need because we only have ideas about next year’s gardens so far, not actual plans. That’s for January. I’m confident that we will always plant as many African blue basils as we have, whether it’s a tray-full or 10 trays-full, and Gail and I are both smitten with a new-to-us Salvia called ‘Wendy’s Wish’. (More about that one when I do top 12 for 2012 post.) We also always make a few more heliotrope and assorted cuphea over the course of the winter, but I had to restrain myself from sticking every perfect cutting I pinched. A tray-full will do until we know where we’ll use them next season and how many we’ll ultimately need.

Are you feeling as ambitious as I am this December? Did you take cuttings this fall? Have you been taking cuttings of those cuttings or will you wait until spring?

We’ve spent the last couple of weeks moving back into the greenhouse; a touch of frost fell this past Saturday morning; and we’re mentally preparing to take the gardens apart this week to make way for tulips. But the season isn’t over. There are a few plants that only just got started and I think they were totally worth the wait. Pineapple sage (Salvia elegans) came back as robust green mounds of sweetly fragrant but otherwise blah foliage until finally deciding to bloom its heart out. It’s really too bad the hummingbirds missed this one. Trumpet spurflower too (Rabdosia longituba) was pretty boring looking until the muppet-lipped cobalt-blue water droplets finally appeared and I’m only sorry that anyone who chooses to visit other times of year instead of right now misses its magic.

Nobody ever minds waiting for mums. I don’t think ‘Sheffield Pink’ would be as pretty without a backdrop of fall color, in this case the dawn redwood hedge beginning to color up. And of course asters. But we have been frustrated enough by their tardiness – and in some cases, the enormous mass of their plain foliage through the summer – that we moved most out the North Garden where they also always got in the way of our fall game of musical perennials. But the bees love them so here they are (I believe this one is ‘October Skies’) in the Display Garden instead.

Plectranthus ciliatus is interesting enough pre-bloom with its army-green, purple backed leaves and stems that the glowing lavender flowers are like icing. And speaking of icing: Orostachys iwarenge. Nothing is cuter in or out of bloom.

It’s hard enough to take apart gardens that are still in bloom – dahlias, nicotiana, amaranth, African blue basil, tassel flower, coreopsis and a truckload of other things are in bloom still or all over again in the Cutting Garden, slated for pitching tomorrow – that if we didn’t have a few true late bloomers tucked in strategic places where they won’t need to be disturbed, I’d be heartsick.

What’s blooming new or still or again in your garden? For an inspirational look at October blooms every-which-where, head over to Garden Bloggers Bloom Day at May Dreams Gardens.

There are always things we want to change about every garden. Plants we want to move. Plants we want to remove. New plants we want to plant. We don’t just want the gardens to change every year (which we do because we think that makes it more interesting for us and for repeat visitors) but we want to get it right. The North Garden especially. It doesn’t actually change a whole lot from year to year (aside from its latest redesign) because we have settled on a palette of colors that suits that garden and its view. It just needs tweaking from one year to the next to make sure that it’s beautiful from one hot summer week to the next and in peak bloom from May to October. And of course we stack the deck as we do in each garden (except maybe the Rock Garden) with annuals and tender perennials that will fill it to the gills with late season color. (Spring and early-summer color themselves.)

But right now the North is quieter than it should be and than we’d like. The petunias that bloomed so beautifully through July and into August have apparently succumbed to the budworm. And something mysterious has happened to our ever-reliable dahlias, particularly those in the front row. They’re all budded up with nary an open flower on a single plant. With the weather being so soft and lovely (aside from last night’s storm) we feel we’re being cheated one of the prettiest times of year in that garden. But Gail and I are harsh critics when we have our notebooks out. When I looked again through the camera lens I saw that the Aster ‘Lady in Black’ has woven its dark foliage beautifully through the garden and will bloom any second now. I noticed that the Coreopsis ‘Red Shift’ and Phlox ‘Natural Feelings’ that the volunteers deadheaded a couple-three weeks ago are putting on a fresh show. The heliotrope, Zinnia angustifolia (which deserves its own post), Ageratum ‘Blue Horizon’ and its doppelganger, hardy ageratum (Conoclinium coelestinum) are all blooming to beat the band. The back row dahlias, ‘Golden Cloud’, which were recommended by a visitor last year are thumbing their nose at whatever scuzz the front row dahlias have gotten and are gooooorgeous.

Nonetheless, we’re working on a list of plants to move and remove for a showier September next year. We might try to save room in the budget to replace petunias with something else (what else?) when they go by and maybe we won’t rely quite so heavily on our favorite little orange dahlias. We’ve made mental and actual notes to remember to cut the phlox and coreopsis back again next year in early to mid-August because their second flush is almost prettier than their first.

Are you your garden’s harshest critic? What will you do differently next year? Have you had similar trouble with dahlias? Any guesses why?