A comment from Kira on my last post echoes a sentiment I read recently in an article by Tovah Martin in Horticulture Magazine and something I’m feeling the crush of too: we’ve had a long enough break from the garden. Isn’t a month or two around the holidays plenty of time before we start feeling the pull of plants again? That’s why Tovah so smartly forces spring bloomers inside. And that’s why Kira (one of our volunteers, incidentally), Gail and I and probably the entire population of gardeners exiled indoors devour every word in every seed catalog. Starting about now, we cannot wait for spring.

I suspect I’d be more interested in winter – because I usually love it – if last week’s snowfall hadn’t parked on the garden like a Mack truck. My hopes of seedheads poking prettily up through winter snows were laid flat. Now I can almost see now the virtue in cutting everything back in fall because why not? if it isn’t going to add loveliness to our winter view. But I  have to remember it isn’t just for us. The birds don’t care what it looks like, so we’ll keep keeping as much standing for them as we can.

As gloomy as I’m suddenly feeling about winter, if spring really was right around the corner, I’d probably say I wasn’t ready after all. Gail and I still need the time to go through catalogs and attend classes (maybe bee school for me this year) and even though I’m no good at waiting (a whole week between Downton Abbey episodes makes me crazy) I know that anticipation will sweeten spring’s arrival. Meanwhile there’s nothing to do for it but to go out and find the pretty in winter and practice Zen-like patience. I’m glad to report that it was easier than I thought it would be to enjoy winter this morning as the fog lifted off the snow. Even tipped over and smashed, the garden was as pretty as I could ever hope it would be.

Is the wait of winter weighing heavily on you – or your garden – too?

I never much liked the idea that the world might end today. It’s so much better that it’s simply the start of a whole new cycle. Just like every other day that rolls into another in a constant unending loop. But I’m all for acknowledging the passage of time every so often. In a way it makes sense here at Blithewold to mark the new year on January first like everyone else. Even though the grounds remain open, our season officially wraps up when the mansion closes for the winter. But as a gardener, I’m inclined to celebrate the new year on the Winter Solstice instead. The day the sun sets to climb a little higher the next. We might have a few long, quiet, cold months ahead before the sun breaks out over the bamboo and before we see much evidence of renewal but, like every other day of the year, there are signs pointing to the next.

Granted, right now it’s hard to tell if some of the signs I’m seeing are renewal or last gasps. Some are simply promises, like the cottony seeds of Anemone tomentosa ‘Robustissima’. I suspect that the Daphne transatlantica ‘Summer Ice’ just doesn’t know when to quit but doesn’t it masquerade beautifully as a sign of spring? And the Helleborus foetidus blooming out of sequence seems to be celebrating its new year a couple months early. Why not?

Are you celebrating the new year, a new cycle, and a new era today too?

Why buy something when you can make it? Especially when you can make it so much more interesting and unique? Our wreath classes sell out every year to people who want to hang something on their front door that will be unlike anyone else’s. A handmade wreath is as special as a snowflake. And so much prettier than anything store-bought.

The greens this year came almost exclusively from Blithewold trees (all but the balsam) and were an unusual assortment that included Moss cypress (Chamaecyparis picifera ‘Squarrosa’), Hinoki cypress (C. obtusa), yew (Taxus baccata), and Japanese umbrella pine (Sciadopitys verticillata). And the method we teach is easy – just wind a continuous loop of wire (we use 22 gauge florist wire) around the frame attaching small bundles of greens as you go. All in the same direction, covering the stems bundle by bundle until the last stems tuck under the first. Piece of cake!

The trick is finding greens. If you don’t have an interesting assortment in your own garden, you might consider that as you peruse the plant catalogs this winter and shop the nurseries next spring. In the meantime, do not be tempted to pick anything without permission, no matter where you are. Rhode Island actually has a Christmas Greens Law (State of R.I. & Providence Plantations, Chapter 15, General Laws 1956, 2-15-12 through 2-15-17) prohibiting picking anything on state property. (For a list of protected plants, click here.)  And for goodness sake, don’t use bittersweet berries because you’ll end up with that junk coming up in walkway and foundation cracks. If you or your generous neighbors don’t have evergreens in need of a trim, buy some from your favorite local nursery. (We always buy balsam for its Christmasy fragrance and because it’s stiff enough to use a backbone for each otherwise floppy bundle.) Even if you have to spend a little to make your wreath, it will be more amazing and special than anything mass produced by strangers. And if you’re like me and not particularly crafty on a daily basis, you might find that it’s also a great way to stretch your creative muscles and generate ideas for what else can be made for Christmas rather than bought.

Do you make your own wreaths or roping? How about Christmas gifts? Would you be willing to share your ideas and/or methods? (I’m still casting around for what to make this year as gifts – I can’t do terrariums again…)

It doesn’t get any sweeter than s’mores and hot cocoa, and the night is never brighter than a bonfire. Or three. Blithewold’s new event, Christmas Sparkle, kicked off last Friday and as someone who is occasionally accused of being a humbug around the holidays (you might not know that about me…) I have to say it was just the sweetest, brightest, best thing. Maybe ever. And I didn’t even have a chance to hang out by the bonfires in the Enclosed Garden, roasting marshmallows and listening to carolers. Instead, I spent my evening with beaming visitors in the greenhouse, which we lit like a fairy house with tiny lights and tea candles.

Every year “the guys” (Fred – director of horticulture, Dan, and now Nick) create some kind of amazing light display on the grounds, and every year we say they outdid themselves. Well. They placed the bar pretty high this year. The magical icicles in the front lawn ginkgo, and handmade copper and jelly jar lanterns along the path from the mansion all the way to the greenhouse would have won the prize for best ever but there are more lights than that and at least one strand (or ten) in a very high place indeed. So you really should come by for a look. But not just a drive-by. This is the year to take a tour through the house if you haven’t yet — or even if you have — because everyone is saying it’s the prettiest ever. Then, either come back or stick around for a Friday night ramble down the path to the greenhouse for a cup of cocoa, stopping in the Enclosed Garden on the way to warm your fingers and marshmallows by the fire(s). If I love it, you will really love it. For more information about Christmas at Blithewold, click here (or here for concerts in the Living Room, and here for the Christmas Sparkle chorus lineup).

I just can’t help myself. The Japanese maples are totally knocking my socks off.

Since it’s forecast to be a beautiful weekend, why not come see for yourself? (The pictures don’t do it justice. Standing underneath one of these trees is like being submerged in pure pigment.) If you do visit, you’ll be guaranteed to catch a glimpse of what’s in the works for Christmas Sparkle too… (I’m not going to give that away here just yet.)