All of the advice you ever read about sowing seeds includes a suggestion to keep a record of what you’ve sown when. I’m pretty sure my head would explode if we didn’t keep track. We also try to record every good idea about the gardens before we forget them in separate books for each garden. In calendars we keep a daily record of the weather outside, what we’ve done all day and who has been in to help. Our calendars — and the blog — are invaluable for remembering whether last spring was the really rainy one or if it was 3 years back, and great for keeping us on track for pruning the roses and other seasonal must-do-nows. And I like to think of these things as an extension of Estelle Clements’ diligent, if sparsely worded, daily record of every happening at Blithewold while she was in residence with the family.

Over the last few years we have tried different methods for keeping track of our seed sowing. We used to simply write lists of what seeds were sown on a particular day, along with the seed source. One page (or two) per day. We could go back to previous years in the book to see what we sowed when but we didn’t keep track of germination timing, success rates and whether or not we liked the plants. Luckily Gail has a good memory for that stuff.

Last year we decided to try using Excel to keep track of all the plants in the garden, including seeds. I’m glad to have the data at my fingertips but it’s not easily accessible for everyone. So this year we’re going back to a book with some database inspired changes. Truth be told, I got the new template from our friend Pam (the self-described “propagating fool”) who got it from The Victory Garden.

In a grid notebook, we have lined out sections for plant, variety, source, quantity (I added that category), date seeded, date germinated, germination success, transplant date, planting out date, harvest date, and a wide space for comments. I know we’ll be good about writing down the date seeded because we’re already in the habit. As we get busier, it will be interesting to see if we’re able to make time to keep track of the rest of it. So far so good but then I’m always enthused to use a new tool at least until it doesn’t feel new anymore.

Do you write it all down? Have you ever used one of those 10 year calendars? — I think that might be next on my record-keeping wishlist. What’s on yours?

Going by the calendar it seems too soon to be out in the garden tidying up but it’s awfully hard to resist when the weather is warm, the birds are singing, and all signs point to spring. Yesterday was just about the first chance Gail and I have had to get reacquainted with the Display Garden. We got a jump on cutting back everything that was starting to self-destruct: the grasses were beginning to blow themselves around the property; teasel had fallen over like drunken giants and most of the salvias looked like someone had sat on them. It couldn’t have been the snow… Verbena bonariensis and sea holly aren’t handsome anymore and the butterfly weed was mostly flattened too so we cut all of those down. Any pretty seedheads still standing we left for later.

After getting a good look at the garden we have a better idea of what probably survived the winter and what we’ll need to reorder – perfect timing because we’ll put our first plant orders in next week. I had decided last summer that I could never garden again without Muhlenbergia capillaris and looked forward to knowing if it was going to prove hardy here. Unfortunately the voles couldn’t live without it either. I’m sure that it would have survived the winter if it hadn’t been eaten to nubs so it’s going back on the wishlist.

We also couldn’t resist going back inside for our annual seed swap lunch with some great friends, one of whom is a self-proclaimed “propagating fool” who can’t pass a plant that has gone to seed without collecting pocketfuls. The swap is always just the excuse we need to go through our seed cupboard. Gail found a few forgotten unsown treasures and lots of saved keepers. The closer we come to spring, the readier we are to have at it.

You too? Have you gotten reacquainted with your garden yet? Have you participated in a seed swap? (Did anyone bring a tin of cookies?)

A little more than a month ago in a post about potting bench perfection I mentioned that our potting bench was in a sorry state and that the windows above it were drafty heat-leakers. No longer true! Gail and I are thrilled to be cozy behind a bank of new storm windows and can’t get over the beauty of the shiny new stainless-steel bench topper that one of our favorite carpenters installed in about 2 seconds yesterday.

Winter is definitely the best time for dreaming about projects and for being able to follow through with minimal disruption to the day to day workings, or the visitors’ enjoyment of the property. It was easy for us to clear the bench because we’re more focused on putting our orders together right now than potting up.

And because there are fewer visitors on the property this time of year, we can get to some changes outside too. The North Garden wall repair was completed in record time and has provided us (the gardens and grounds staff) with an excellent opportunity to ask the gardens and grounds committee to consider a few of our ideas. We’d like to re-size some of the beds, improve the soil, add irrigation, and lay a path that will tie the floating fountain, which at one time had been the punctuation at the end of a bowling green, back to the garden. With spring clearly closer than it usually is this time of year, it looks like this next project might get rolling soon. We hope all of Blithewold’s members, visitors, and brides think it’s an improvement.

Are you using this time to make some improvements to home and garden too?

Just in time for winter to finally look and feel more like a proper winter, Gail and I are sliding headfirst towards spring. We started the new year by looking through magazine back issues for inspiration. (Do you do that too? It’s as if I never saw them before – and in some cases I hadn’t. Who has time to read anything in May and June – or October for that matter?) And in the last couple of weeks we’ve moved along to seed catalogs. At first it seemed like there was nothing new and then suddenly everything old was new again and everything forgotten was remembered fondly and wanted desperately. The more we go through the catalogs making choices, the more our momentum and excitement builds, so much that it’s hard to know when to quit.

Same thing with taking cuttings – but then I always have a hard time not taking more than we need if there are more to take. I started whacking back the scented geraniums (Pelargonium, that is) yesterday and it’s a good thing we have a plan for these next year, because we’ll have plenty of plants now thanks to me being obsessive about sticking every possible cutting.

Pelargonium are so easy to root and now is a fine time if you haven’t cut yours back yet. Take the growing tips and prepare them by cutting below the second or third leaf node from the tip. Cut that leaf off right at the stem and then place the cutting end-out of a plastic bag for a day. They root more reliably if the wound has a chance to callous first. Once the cut looks dry and slightly crusted, dust or dip it in rooting hormone and stick in dampened perlite, vermiculite or sand – whatever you like to use for rooting. If the remaining leaves are large, cut them in half to reduce transpiration. Keep them out of direct sun and the  medium from drying out. A few weeks waiting should do the trick.

Are you sliding down a slippery slope to spring too? Are you ordering more seeds or taking more cuttings yet than you have room for?

Over at Gardening Gone Wild, Debra Lee Baldwin (author of a couple of beautiful books on succulents) showed off a few examples of “potting area perfection”, including her own, and it got me thinking about the place where Gail and I spend so much time we sort of take it for granted.

The greenhouses’ headhouse was designed around the turn of the twentieth century as a proper potting shed – with cubbies for pots (and tulip bulbs, come summer), a “desk” with a hinged lid and drawers for storage, seed cupboard, shelve, closet, a dreamy soapstone sink (donated recently), and two benches, one of which is probably not ancestral and holds up the computer I’m working on now.

The other, in front of three beautiful, drafty old windows facing the Display Garden is our potting bench. It stands a good 37″ high, which just right for potting up little things, a little tall for the bigger pots; and is just as wide and long enough that 4 people can work side by side fairly comfortably. Bins for potting soil, peat packs and pots, and a mini-fridge fit underneath.

When I first started working here the bench was covered with a rapidly deteriorating sheet of Masonite and we always kept the soil in concrete mixing tubs like the one in the picture. When the greenhouses were restored in 2005, the bench was bestowed with a new polyurethaned plywood surface. We gleefully started mixing larger batches of potting soil right on it and now it has become cracked and pitted too.

We’ve been pipe dreaming about a new surface – stainless steel, marine-grade plywood – anything that might hold up to our use and abuse. And now after seeing other examples I have even more good ideas – it could have sides and a backsplash to keep us from clogging the electrical outlets…  A soil holding contraption could slide along the counter to make room for whatever else we are using the bench for today…

What is it about potting sheds and benches that invites wishful thinking? If I had to guess I’d say that it has to do with being specifically designed for its intended purpose. There’s a kind of beauty in that and it’s inspiring to see all the different ways there are of creating and using such a dedicated space. Ours might seem merely perfectly functional, often messy, and every-day to us but anyone peering in the windows might see something much lovelier.

What do you wish for at your potting bench?