The Morning It Ended

Oh was I ever so happy to see blue sky appear as it turned to light Monday morning. The beginning of the end of my torment.



Up before dawn to light a fire, it was too cold inside to stay in bed. Rats, the power did not come back on in the dark of the night.



Fetching logs from the ridge top garden would be easier in the sunlight when it wasn't snowing.



The day ended with no electric power.



All that newly split and cut wood would be needed to keep the temperature inside the igloo close to sixty degrees before I fell asleep in the dark and the fire went out.

Moods Of The Big Dump

Most of the snow came on Friday. The power first went out at 11:30am when we were just getting started. It came back on for about a half an hour at 1pm. Then at 1:30pm Friday that was the last of the electric power until Tuesday at 4pm.



By the end of the day Friday there was a foot of snow. It continued to snow lightly all day Saturday. Saturday night another two inches was added for fourteen inches of piled up snow.



Between initial melting and compaction there had to have been at least sixteen inches of total snow.



It snowed lightly all day Sunday. Is that a light I see at the end of the dump?



I didn't get far from the igloo for most of the days. I saw a lot of this view.

Igloo

After the initial shock, survival mode quickly becomes routine before it gets annoying.

After four days without power, what I need first is a long hot shower. Scenes of the Big Dump will be coming up.

It Has Begun

The impertinent indeterminate wintry mix. In the last three hours I have seen frozen rain, sleet, snow and now back to wet rain.

Speak To Me

It has been quite a few months since the large boulders lying in wait at the bottom of the sunny utility valley have been visible. They tend to get swallowed in the summer lush. The subject of winter interest in the garden got me thinking about them again.



A massive sculptural earth work is bound to make winter more interesting when the huge stones become more prominent in the bareness of winter. But what do the stones want to be?



I went in there with a machete to flatten the former lush and give the stones a chance to speak their mind.

I want to do something different. I have built walls and have one more planned. I have stacked heiau/pyramids and frankly these stones are too big and heavy to lift and stack. The land almost calls out for a dry streambed through this natural drainage. But if you can wrap your mind around the idea, the ground stays too wet for a dry streambed. I think it would be a maintenance issue to keep the stones cleared of what will attempt to bury them as a dry streambed.

What do the stones want to be? I won't be hauling rocks tomorrow so they still have time to speak.



By tomorrow the stones could be buried again. The diagnosis is calling for a big one. Up to eight inches of snow are predicted for the next two days. I couldn't let this window of pseudo warmth and dry go to waste. The fancy cover board over the outside face of the main girder was attached and primed. I am actually running out of odds and ends to do on the cabin and need to get the drywall taken care of in order to move ahead.

I never did take that break from cabin building though and now that it seems like I have, my mind has really turned to action in the garden to be. I am enjoying the change.



As I was calling it a day and getting ready to head next door I heard the sound of cranes over head. I looked up and saw three white cranes flying above. Could they be Whooping Cranes? Are there any other white cranes that could be flying south over the North Carolina mountains in December?

They flew over Hebo mountain and begin to fly in circles like they were confused about which way to go. I watched. It took several circles of flying before it dawned on me they were using the updraft on the mountain to gain altitude. In the same place they just kept getting smaller. Take a picture dummy! By then they were mere specks on the last circle before heading south.



The stone sculpture will often be viewed from above. Two thoughts that keep repeating are the Nazca lines of Peru and ancient petroglyphs. How can the stones be made to paint an imagine on the ground with enough substance that it will not be totally swallowed up in the summer time? What image should be painted?



I toyed with the notion of an amphitheater. There is an intended car turn around down in the bottom for occasional heavy garden chores. An amphitheater could frame that turn around and make a strong structural statement. The idea wasn't calling strongly though. To do it right would require some major engineering. Could I add another line to a half circle framing the turn around? What shape will I begin to get?



I can listen to the stones again tomorrow. I headed next door with visions of Whooping Cranes circling over head, gaining altitude to ease their way south.



Circling cranes, petroglyphs and the lines of Nazca seen from above. Is this it? Is this the massive sculptural earth work for the garden to be to add winter interest? It even has elements of a mini-maze.

This could be it.

What The Winter Garden Needs

For all my whining about the world of brown sticks you might not know there are two pockets of landscaping that hold winter interest quite well in the ridge top garden. One is just below the deck of the resident gardeners house. A strong planting of evergreens mixed with several deciduous shrubs contains a nice mix of plant size, form and color to give winter weary eyes something to contemplate while the forest rests for the winter.



A dash of sculpture contributes to the scene.



One thing these two pockets of evergreens have in common is they are located in openings of the forest canopy that get more sun.



Even in winter I don't do cooped up in the house all day very well. If all I get is a short stroll outside for the day it is better than nothing, no matter the weather. Crawford is checking out the newly reopened path through the front conifer collection. Twenty five years of growth was working to seal off this path. Some judicious pruning was in order.



In this high southern winter where it can be snow covered and frozen one day and allegedly warm the next, actual chores can be done in the garden throughout the year. Several layers of clothing may be required, but it is actually possible to go outside and work or stroll through the garden in relative comfort on a good many days.

Over the next few months I will continue to pick up sticks and begin the process of cutting down the standing dried stalks of the perennial wildflowers that refuse to be flattened on their own.



The winter garden needs to pull me outside and give me a reason to enter. I have a bit more sun at my place from all the utility lines running through. Thinning the forest will give me even more. Instead of small pockets that have winter interest, it should be easier for me to create a garden that works year round and proclaims its garden-ness over the entire space, even in the brown stick world of winter. The better to lure me outside to wander and putter when it is cold.

Gloom Day

Woe is me in the cold, brown, grey and chilly land of the sticks. What is a garden blogger to do for Bloom Day? Will it be possible to find a bloom anywhere outside? This field of goldenrod is a bit past its prime.



I stopped anyway just to be sure and because something that hides back in that group of trees all summer is as exposed as it will ever get. The next strong wind could knock the thing down for good. It was time to finally stop and have a closer look before it was too late.

I read some where that this is called the passing.



A way of life lived long before the internet was even imagined could be one reason a google search turned up no reference to the passing. The folks talking about such things probably aren't online a whole lot.



The skeletal frames of the trees on a ridge line reveal the true form of the earth. What do the skeletal remains of houses and old barns tell us?



Did you notice I changed the subject?



It was one of those days when it might rain and it might not. It might snow later and it might not. While it wasn't doing either, I forged ahead with more clearing of the forest for the Bloom Days yet to come. Moving down the line below the scenic byway it is amazing how much open space is created just by cleaning out a bunch of barren sticks. So far I have only done the small things that can be cut with a pruning saw. The chainsaw work will be even more dramatic.

A blank slate can fill a gardener's heart with glee.



Doing this now in the time of brown sticks on Garden Blogger Bloom Day is strong incentive to plan ahead for winter interest. Maybe I won't be able to have oodles of blooms on a dreary day in December, but I can have form and colorful variegation from plants like Yucca filamentosa.



I can have big red berries in the cruel of winter from flowers that went unnoticed with Cotoneaster dammeri 'Streibs Findling'.



And lo and behold. The Mediterranean Pink Heath, Erica x darleyensis is blooming up a storm. I have a bloom for Bloom Day. I will be needing more of the pink heath obviously. This should take me through to the next bitter Bloom Day of January when the snowdrops, Galanthus sp. should be having their first blooms.



Carol it really is true. “We can have flowers nearly every month of the year”.

Editing And Contemplation

You have to start some where at some point in time. When it finally stopped raining this afternoon I got started on editing the trees between the cabin and the scenic byway. I could not get the chainsaw started. I think it has been sitting too long and probably has a gunked up carburetor. That was fine. The intent was to start with the little stuff first to get it out of the way for felling the larger trees that need to go. A pruning saw, shovel and hand clippers worked just fine for the small stuff.



It may be hard to tell from a picture, but it already it looks cleaner. That very much appeals to my sense of order and tidiness.

When the larger trees come out, most of which are the ugly Black Locust, there will be so much more wonderful open space for planting. Smaller understory trees like Dogwood and Witch Hazel would make some nice additions. I am sure there will be other fine choices to consider.



I even have a specimen boulder in this area that will make a fine focal point in the garden to be.



Beyond the notion of the aesthetics involved in the creation of a garden in the wild forest another major motivation for this murderous spree is to make room for some evergreen screening between me and the road. For that I will need more sun.

I wandered up to the road to contemplate the planned general locations for my mixed, undulating and segmented evergreen privacy screening. Would this work with the constraints of the utility easement, the proximity to the road and the dangers of the DOT's long armed hydraulic mowers? Would there be enough space and enough sun? Will it make for a nice garden? I think it will all work out just fine. One thing I have plenty of is space.



In addition to new plantings in and along the edge of the forest, the wide sunny slope below the existing roadside flowerbed will need some more definition. I long ago began the process of editing out the unwanted blackberries and elderberry that owned this space. Elderberry are nice when they bloom, but that is about it. They are rather leggy and rangy the rest of the year. The blackberries and elderberry are in retreat and the next thug living in there that will be attacked in earnest come spring is the Clematis virginiana vine.

I have fondness for Sumac. I like the leaf shape, the persisting red seed heads and the brilliant fall color. The Rhus glabra might be good one to plant. There is an existing grouping of the native Hydrangea arborescens on this slope. Those will stay. Perhaps I could add the Oakleaf, Hydrangea quercifolia instead of Sumac. Another contender is the Plume Poppy, Macleaya cordata.

A large drift of one species will take up a chunk of this slope. I need mass to create any impact in the vast world of the forest.



It is all an odd balance. Here I am trying to create interest and drama so people will notice and it bugs me just a bit when they slow down to rubberneck. You can look, but only so far in. Just maybe a quick peak of the cozy cabin will be left open to view from the road for the winter. The roadside attractions here already include Uncle Ernie, the old chimney and a lush flower meadow surrounded vegetable garden in the summer. There are plans for more of course. A new fence and proper entry gate of uncommon design will add even more intrigue.



Ku'ulei 'Aina slowly gathers form.