Winter's Here

Still have our Christmas lights up;
sometimes I turn them on in the morning
so the kids can see them as they head out to school

The snow and cold are finally here.  So are the first of the gardening catalogs.  


Guess it was kind of silly to be so worried about a too-warm and snow-less winter back in December.  Now there's enough for the kids to make snowmen and I even saw a couple of snowmobilers out on the trails a few days ago.

Snow cover is a good thing so I'm pretty happy we've finally got some.  Also, fluffy white snow is just SO pretty, even when you are out shoveling before the sun is up.

I bought some Gnatrol for my fungus gnat infection but I'm nervous to use it.  The list of instructions and warnings seems awfully long for an organic product.  After all, it's just Bt.  I keep my houseplants pretty dry so the gnats have dwindled on their own.

I've started putting together a list of plants I want to get this year.  The viburnum from my front foundation planting that I chopped down to the ground last year did not return, so I've got a hole to fill there.  I love the planning part of gardening best of all.

Dead Aspens-What to Do?

Sometimes it seems like gardening is like politics.  You can be a ruthless dictator and spend your time defending your turf against all manner of fellow creatures, or you can be a compromiser and try to coexist peacefully with others, taking action only when the balance is threatened. Being the latter reduces time on the battle field but makes every decision complicated.

Take a dead tree for example.  We have several snags on our lot.  I recently had an arborist out to quote me for cleaning up our remaining buckthorn and he asked me if I wanted all those snags removed.  Now, if I wasn't concerned about wildlife I'd have had him take them all down, no other thought required.  However, we have a lot of woodpeckers on our little lot, including downy woodpeckers, who happen to live in dead trees.  So I want to be selective in which dead trees to remove.   

I love seeing and hearing the birds in our yard and I know they eat a lot of bugs so it's not just sentiment that makes me want to provide a haven for them.  They are worth it. 

Looks pretty pathetic with no snow...sigh....

So, only one will be coming down-an aspen felled a couple of weeks ago during our last bit of windy weather and snagged in an oak tree that I want to get pruned this winter.

Changing subjects...who would think that in January it'd be too warm to safely prune oaks? You probably already know, but oaks and elms should only be pruned in the winter so disease-carrying beetles don't get them.  I've seen the damage oak wilt can do to a neighborhood-it's scary!

Seriously, I love a 40 or 50 degree winter day as much as the next person but day after day?  It's gotta stop!  Bring on the cold...I've got yard work to do!

Hot Tubs Look Good in the Snow

Staying warm?  I'm trying to; anything below 20 and I avoid going outside if I can.  Guess I shouldn't be living in Wisconsin...

Anyhow, I think I promised to put up a picture of the neighbor's new hot tub, the crowning glory of his back yard landscaping renovation, and it is indeed glorious!  Hot tubs look good in the snow!  Now, I just have to figure out how to get an invite (insert scheming smile here).

Before it snowed I noticed that I have a lot of plants in my yard that haven't gone dormant yet.  And of those plants, a lot of them have purple or burgundy foliage.  I've scattered some pix of them throughout this post.

'Caitlin's Giant' Ajuga-bought some of these on clearance
 to try under my cedar out front; it's a tough spot-
even lamium and lamiustrum didn't care for it

January is starting off pretty quiet.  Not much new happening in my gardening life currently; we finished the retaining wall before the ground froze but not in time to plant the boxwoods I got on clearance late fall.

They are in my basement under a full spectrum lamp, along with some of my less-loved houseplants and outdoor tropicals.  It must be a pretty tortuous environment.  The cilantro plant I bought from the store died immediately after I put it down there.  My coleus starts also died pretty much as soon as I put them there; I guess I should have kept them in water on my kitchen windowsill a bit longer to build up the roots.  Too bad about the coleus, they were very pretty over the summer.

Some type of sundrops/primrose-
I didn't plant these so I don't have a tag for them

As for my Amaryllis; it doesn't want to go dormant this year.  Not sure what that's about. I'm wondering if it will bloom for me this year.  Last year it went dormant first before it put on new leaves and bloomed.

Buglossoides- these kept their color last year until the very end of winter

Other than trying to keep plants alive in the basement (it's cold down there but those plants are just too big and heavy to haul upstairs) I've been reading up on unrefrigerated cold-room food storage.  I think I'm going to dedicate some space in the basement for this purpose and give it a try.

Regular Heartleaf Bergenia-during the
summer I couldn't tell the regular from 'Eroica' (seen below);
however the difference in their fall color is striking

This winter I need to prune out the black knot fungus I found on most of the chokecherries in our side yard.  I also plan on taking down some big buckthorns.  I marked them with string earlier in the fall when they still had leaves.  I'm just not very skilled at winter tree identification.  There's always a winter tree ID class in late winter at the Retzer Nature Center but it's always on a weekend that I am unavailable.  Frustrating!

Other than that I don't have much gardening stuff to do other than drool over catalogues and draw out plans for the spring and summer plantings.  Oh, I even gathered up all my plant tags and sorted them.  They have their very own labeled plastic box now.  Ooh, I feel SO organized!

Well, gotta go and figure out how to get the fungus gnat infection I've got going in the house under control...

'Eroica' Heartleaf Bergenia's fall color