Smell the earth day
January 26th, 2010 by Kristin GreenThe annual January thaw always fools me – and maybe the wrens too – into thinking that spring must be right around the corner. After yesterday’s warm rain deluge, the snow is a memory, the ground gives and squishes like a soaked sponge and there is so much variety in the shades of green and brown that I’m getting distracted trying to give them all names. (viridian, turquoise, jade, moss, pea, blue lichen, salad mix; topaz, russet, ashes of roses, sepia, raw umber, muddy boot…) Anyway there’s a rainbow, so to speak, (get it – rainbow?) outside and it smells pretty good too.
Some gardeners take the cold weather opportunity to find hot (color) climes this time of year. But as envious of them as I generally feel (evidently, Costa Rica is the happiest place on Earth), I wouldn’t want to miss the thaw and the daily reminder to appreciate the changes even when they’re really, really subtle. (This is how I console myself – along with naming the greens and browns.) Plus there are all sorts of seminars and lectures over the winter and I wouldn’t want to miss any of those either – just last night Lee Reich gave a talk here on how to espalier fruit trees (and shrubs – currants!) and tomorrow we’re off to the RI Nursery and Landscape Association winter conference.
Can you smell the earth today? How do you console yourself for not being in Costa Rica? (Or is that where you are?)
January 26th, 2010 at 9:33 pm
I just discovered your blog and have such delight in reading back over recent entries. Thanks so much for words and photos that touch the heart. My husband and I moved to enchanted Bristol last November, and joined Blithewold right away. He was really surprised to find so much to appreciate about a garden in Winter; I was not. I was born on the Winter Solstice, and so take secret pleasure in watching the weather channel announcing the sunset getting later each day. That is the day that the year turns around, and the earth makes its subtle shift of the seasons; the celestial “grinding of the wheels” that adjusts the days as we progress towards summer! What a great day to be born on for me!! I am happy to have found your words of inspiration, and look forward to reading them in the future. Thanks!!
Thank YOU, Jean and happy un-birthday! I’m so glad to meet a neighbor (and a member – hooray!) – I wonder if we might have actually met once or twice already?… Anyway, I hope to see you again here (on these pages) and here (on these grounds) often. -kris
January 26th, 2010 at 10:21 pm
Muddy Boot! hee hee hee. I am loving just getting reacquainted with my little plants now that I can see them again. Spring has never felt so close (only 2 months til I can plant something…)
Lynn, 2 months seems like hardly any time at all, doesn’t it? I wonder if spring will still feel close by as the temps dip back into the bitter colds… -kris
January 27th, 2010 at 7:38 pm
Kris, honestly I read this post just now after I posted and we are thinking somewhat alike although I am going back outside tomorrow to see all those alluring colors. I really only saw gray and brown.
Layanee, I saw quite a few more colors in your pictures than you did! I hope you’ve seen them by now too. -kris