January on My Mind

I'm partied out and broke. January is dreary with drab, damp days and monochromatic scenery. Spindly tree limbs form tangled masses on the horizon. Sunsets are fierce with battered skies. Only an occasional day opens blue, with sharp edges.I want to garden, but cold winds blow away the joy. A good book, a warm drink, and a comfy seat near the fireplace have greater pull, and I have no desire to venture outdoors.

But after a while I must. 

Only to find tragedy. Outside the kitchen door are mockingbird feathers, scattered across the patio. I look around for the familiar mockingbird who guarded this territory, who established a nest in the weeping yaupon tree next to the patio last year. I don't see him. Mercifully, the body is gone. Was it a neighbor's cat, or possibly the Red-shouldered hawk? I would feel better if it were the hawk.A hawk searches for a meal.

This weeping yaupon holly grows outside our kitchen. Mockingbirds love the berries.Still saddened I look around for something to brighten my spirits. I don't have to look far. Below the weeping yaupon tree, the hellebores are beginning to bloom. There are several varieties growing here, and they have intermingled and self-seeded to produce nameless, illegitimate offspring. I don't care. I think they are lovely.

As I walk in the garden I find other spots of color. The winter daphne is budding and has opened one tiny flower. I grow this beautiful, sweet smelling plant in a pot to ensure good drainage. Clay soil and long rainy days would spell death to it otherwise. An ornamental cabbage, above left, also catches my interest, as does the remains of a bright seedpod on a gardenia bush. There are quite a few of these orange and yellow pods on the gardenia bush in the woodlands.

 And then I find this odd rock:

I love rocks! I love the permanence of them; I love their varied textures and patterns and colors. Here are some more rocks in my garden, each with holes and a story to tell, if I knew it.

First, a white one:

A yellow one:

And an orange one:

Now I'm on a roll, taking picture after picture of rocks, and I'm enjoying myself.
At last I turn back toward the house, again to see mockingbird feathers near the kitchen door. The fleeting life of a mockingbird; the solid rocks that will be here long years from now. But the holes remind me that even rocks are not eternal, for eventually they too are turned to dust. I sigh. January is getting to me. It's time to go inside and fix myself a cup of cappuccino with my new cappuccino machine!

The Best of the Rest, 2011

January is a good month for clearing out duplicate or subpar photos from my computer. It's a big job, as I can stroll through the garden and come back with several hundred photos! I eliminate a lot of them from my digital camera before transferring them to a computer, but I still end up with scads of photos just taking up hard drive space. However, there's always some photos I want to hang on to, even though they never made it to the blog.

Here are a few of the 'best of the rest'. For each month of 2011, I picked one previously unpublished photo taken that month. I chose them for different reasons, and the selection was harder than I thought!

January:Naked trees are beautiful! January may be a dreary month, but even as a few dead leaves still cling to tree and shrub branches, I appreciate the sculptural quality of the landscape. It's a good month to see the 'bones' of the garden.

February:Snowfalls are few and brief here in Helena, Alabama. I enjoyed pretending this is the normal winter appearance of my yard! The blue bench in the Front Garden is beautiful whatever the season.

March:Only six weeks after the previous photo, dogwoods and some azaleas and other flowering shrubs are blooming. The Japanese maples also put on a show this time of year.

April:I have had this concrete squirrel ornament for many years. He moves around the patio and surrounding area according to whim. 

May:The swing in the Lady Garden is a favorite spot to watch and listen to wildlife. Hawks, owls, bluebirds, robins, cardinals, and many other species of birds frequent the area. Not to mention squirrels, chipmunks, and bunny rabbits. Occasionally there are raccoons and foxes, opossums, and snakes. And lots of insects!

June:This year I added several hydrangeas to the ones already growing along the little path that connects the Lady Garden to the Front Garden. I now have a hydrangea walk! 

July:This 'Butterfly' Japanese maple was planted earlier this year. It grows near the hydrangea walk. I love its variegated leaves. I once had another one of these, unfortunately planted in poor soil in way too much sun. It was a deadly location. I hope this one will like its shady site with soil enriched with lots of organic matter. It's looking good in July, and so far, so good.

August:Many plants and people suffer through the summer doldrums in August, wilting in the heat. The bright foliage of weeping Deodar Cedar 'Feelin' Blue' is a refreshing, deceptively cool note in the Woodland Garden.

September:Look very closely amidst the garlic chives. Can you find two hairstreak butterflies?

October:This October photo looks over the herb bed. One can see down the slope to the arbor in the Lady Garden. This area becomes wild if I don't trim and weed it regularly through the summer, which I never do because it's craziness to do that kind of work in July and August! I clean things up once the weather starts to cool. The herb bed is on my list for a major renovation. It's not at the top of the list, but it's on there.

November:The ivy that grows in the woods beside our drive may be beautiful, but it is terribly invasive. Lou cuts the ivy from around the base of as many trees as possible each year, but it is a losing battle. The lady who built my house sixty years ago loved ivy and planted a few sprigs here and there. I wonder what she would think if she could see it now. I have to work to keep it out of the main part of the Woodland Garden.

December:I love these variegated poinsettias. Each year many of my Christmas decorations are plants, and that is no surprise to anybody!

I hope you enjoyed seeing some of my leftover photos. May you have happy gardening and make many good memories in 2012!

If that's not enough, also see 2010 Leftovers