“…. after summer evermore succeeds
Barren winter, with his wrathful nipping cold.”
Shakespeare
Recently a visiting friend was surprised to see next year’s seed catalogues on my coffee table. They’ve been there for a couple of weeks now along with the highlighter pen. My friend asked if I was going to get more of those “ghastly frilly glads”. I said that I probably was since I didn’t know if last year’s would stay the same. Sometimes the fancy ones revert to a simpler form.
I put in a few last year and they added a nice touch of humour to the late summer garden. I thought of them as a reminder that we shouldn’t take ourselves too seriously. These are in the same category as the perennial ornamental rhubarb with its huge pink flowers. It has giant leaves and is a bit of an ungainly plant. But no matter. In a cottage garden, all manner of plants are welcome.
The last planting job of the year, garlic, was finally accomplished in late November just before the ground froze. After I do this, I spend a little time looking at my garden journal from the past season. I don’t write in great detail; just point form notes about what succeeded and what failed.
I don’t get too upset about the failures. That’s life in the garden and if something fails just move on and try something else. It is, as they say, an opportunity.
I would count putting smaller dahlias in pots as a success. I put them in plastic pots since they needed to be light enough to be brought inside when there were a few cold nights in late summer and early fall. They continued to bloom well into fall. I have probably given up on the bigger dahlias since it seems to be just too cold here.
I often reread one of my favourite garden writers, Anna Pavord. She writes that it’s hard to look at one’s own garden objectively. She is correct that familiarity breeds acceptance.
I accepted my decrepit vegetable garden fence for many years. But I finally got around to fixing it this past spring. I did some of the work in early spring on one of the smoke days. Remember those?
So what I take from Anna Pavord’s musings is that it’s probably a good idea to get down to tackling those jobs that you really don’t want to do. I really didn’t want to deal with the fence. But now that I have checked that off the list, it feels like an accomplishment. When spring comes, I won’t be looking at a fence that’s falling apart.
I was happy to see some bittersweet vines are growing on the trees behind the vegetable garden. This wasn’t obvious when the leaves were on the trees. I’m not sure if Nature planted those or if they came from me throwing old vines I had used as decoration out there. Wherever they came from, they are welcome.
Some of the bittersweet will go on a giant grapevine wreath that I hang on the woodshed every year. When I can’t find bittersweet, I use clusters of rose hips. I have smaller wreaths, too, that get reused with new additions every year.
Grapevine only needs to be twined around itself. You don’t need any wire and it couldn’t be any easier to make a wreath that you can reuse for years.
I have seen many people out gathering natural materials to decorate for the season. There is a lot to choose from. I will never get tired of the usual suspects red dogwood, grapevine and sumac. But there are also beech and oak leaves, wild clematis and even horsetail. Limited only by your imagination.
Merry Christmas and all the best of the season.
By Jill Williams
