In The Absence Of Flowers

I wait for the next round of winter to arrive.

There was a stretch of blue sky and fifty degrees after the rain. The snow is scheduled to arrive in the night and last for the day. An enduring cold is to follow.

I amble around a garden in the absence of flowers where shiny silver balls perch high atop tree trunks.

Where things accumulate and I ponder their very presence, and proper placement, and if there can even be such a thing.

In the absence of flowers I wait for a screening of evergreens to become trees. And I wait. Each year the growth seems to be of the tiniest of increments.

So I started spreading my dung. Maybe that will speed things up.

It is the evergreens that are painfully slow. The deciduous trees I have planted have grown by leaps and bounds by comparison.

In the middle of casting out dung, the Tree of Death was born. I had found what I think is a large tractor size snow chain along the scenic byway and dragged the heavy thing down the driveway. I thought of something to do with it.

It needs something.

That's better, but it still needs something. The Climbing Hydrangea,  Hydrangea anomala subsp. petiolaris that is already planted at the base of the tree would look very nice. It is but the tiniest of sprigs, only nominally alive. I have been waiting for it to grow. Today I smothered it with dung. Maybe that will help.

But really, is this too much, not enough? In the absence of flowers the garden is beginning to look like a salvage yard.

I moved on. I can think about that later. A cut upslope was made and the switchback path was widened to prepare for the new short dry stack retaining wall. A collection of rocks was begun.

I garden on in the absence of flowers.