view cart • checkout

Home > In the Garden > Eat You Roses

Winter Dreams

The cold wintery days of January and February make us long for the warm, sunny days of summer. In our minds, we can see the greens and pastels of our gardens, remember the fragrances and hear the birds singing.

But, since the ground is frozen solid and snow blankets the landscape, we can't act on our dreams. However, deep winter is a great time to plan for next summer's gardens! And, now that it's catalog season, we're all being tempted with visions of new plants and new ideas for our gardens. In this issue of In the Garden, we offer some ideas and advice on planning next year's garden.

Visual Your Ideal Garden

Gardens are the results of our dreams. We get a picture in our head and we dig and plant to turn that dream into reality. Winter is a great time to dream of the garden we want to create.

To start, grab your garden photos or close your eyes and remember what pleased your about your garden last summer. Do you have a favorite plant that comes to mind, or a special plant combination that worked just right? That success is what you want to repeat throughout your garden next year.

Or maybe you saw the perfect garden at a public garden or arboretum. It may have been on a much grander scale than your space will allow, but it is possible to reproduce it, or parts of it, in a smaller garden.

When I do my winter dreaming, I long to add more diversity to my garden. New plants take top priority. Then, like rearranging furniture in my house, I think about how I want to rearrange what I have. This rearranging usually involves paths, rock walls and structures for climbing plants. And, I always want to add more features that attract birds--especially water.

Structure and Bones

Put on your boots and winter coat and take a winter walk through your garden. A good garden design provides year-round interest. If you only see snow, then either you have a record amount of snow that covered up everything, or you have a garden with no bones.

Even a prairie garden can have structure. Just don't cut everything down in the fall and you'll have interesting dried plants that add sculpture to your winter garden. The dried plants can also provide food and shelter for birds.

You don't have to buy expensive arbors or sculpture to add structure to your garden. Plants provide some of the best structure or bones to tie your garden together. Strategically placed trees and shrubs anchor your garden, provide accent or focal points and help define borders. Narrow conifers can anchor and define the corners of an allee, or a small tree can attract the eye and guide you through the garden.

The "bones" of your garden also add a three-dimensional perspective, primarily through height. In a nutshell, the bones keep your garden from being flat. So, when you think about this ideal garden you want this summer, don't forget to add structure.

Diversify

Some of the most interesting gardens I've visited had a wide diversity of plants. We are lucky to have so much diverse plant material available to us. You may have noticed that there has been an explosion of perennial varieties offered through mail order nurseries and even our local garden centers. In addition to perennials, many small mailorder nurseries specialize in hard to find plants that can add lots of interest to your garden. You can find many of them through searching on the Internet.

Another great way to add more plant diversity to your garden is to attend plant sales put on by garden clubs and arboretums. Or start some new plants by seed. Thompson and Morgan seed company has the largest selection of flowering plants available anywhere.

And, if you're real adventurous, order plants from another country! Many wonderful rose varieties are available only from nurseries in Germany, France and England. Check with your state Department of Agriculture for information on importing plants, such as required quarantines and inspections. The annual Combined Rose List is the ultimate resources for rose lovers. It lists all roses available in commerce each year and where to get them -- worldwide. It's available from Peter Schneider, PO Box 677, Mantua, OH 44255.

Plans Prevent Stress

Winter lasts a long time in Wisconsin. And, I always think I have plenty of time to finish my garden plans. But, it seems that spring always catches me off guard, and soon I have plants arriving that I can't even remember ordering! Now, if I had a roadmap showing me where I "planned" to place everything, then spring would be more enjoyable, and I wouldn't have nearly as many "oh my god, why did I plant that orange lily there?" mistakes.

Of course, plans aren't always followed to the letter, but they are great for capturing any inspirational ideas you might have for your garden. Keep a little notebook next to your wheelbarrow to write down ideas and notes while you're out in the garden this summer.

Don't Overdo It

All of those gardenings catalogs showing up this time of the year in our mail make it real easy to order more than we have room for in our gardens! Or worse yet, we pick the wrong plants and end up throwing the unwanted plant in the compost pile along with our hard-earned money.

If you first dream about what you want from your garden this year, then take a walk through your garden, and then draw up a plan, it will be alot easier to pick the right plants from all those tempting catalogs.

But, if you're like me, you'll probably do it backwards. I pour through the catalogs, circling plants I like and earmarking pages. Then, I figure out where I'm going to put what I want. Well, at least I have a plan... And, I'm always dreaming about my garden.

The best advice is to take it easy and don't order too much. Think about all the other things you want or have to do this spring and it will be easier to limit what you buy. Unless, of course, you hire someone to plant everything you've purchased!

Do your part to reduce waste! If you're getting catalogs you don't want, give them to friends or contact the company and ask to be removed from the mailing list. Many of them have e-mail so you don't have to send a letter and make more paperwaste while trying to reduce it. And, be sure to recycle those unwanted catalogs. Or use the newsprint for mulch or filler for your compost pile.

Or, keep the catalogs for reference. You can also cut out pictures and descriptions of plants that you like and paste them into your own customized garden notebook.

So, make yourself something hot to drink, grab a blanket and go snuggle up on your couch while you peruse through your gardening catalogs and books and dream about your garden!