A Polar Christmas

It was a shelter in place kind of weather forecast. Those were my plans anyway. The gardener was near ready to close for the season. Wicked cold and a dash of snow was on the way.

The cupboards were filled so I could stay put. I may get to hibernate. Wicked cold was on the way.

On the balmy afternoon before the event, I pondered a garden about to get zapped. A flash freeze of minus degrees was a rather abrupt change of scene.

It is the extremes that cause all the havoc. What will survive intact in a flash frozen world? Will the power stay on?

Minus eight degrees -8** on fast moving winds along with a light dash of snow. It won't get above freezing for five whole days in a row. One spigot is frozen. The books got done. That has happened in the minus before. The power stayed on. I stayed put. The wind was blowing every time I set foot outside. It is time to hibernate. We are having a polar Christmas.

Put Another Rock On The Heiau

Day by day the rocks pile up.

The IRS accepted the amount I sent them as my only offer and removed the penalties and interest. There was a vague admission of error degoop. A few days later the IRS sent another letter that said, "we may owe you as much as $1500."

I told you so. I'll let them figure it out.

Wicked cold is on the way for Christmas. It's looking like zero. Snow may be involved. There is talk of wind. I will be stuck inside. I can do the books and get ready for this year's taxes. I can have naps.

The Colorful Winter Garden

It is Bloom Day and I have no flowers. I have flower buds on an inside orchid. No need to despair. I have a winter garden filled with color. It is more than enough to take me to the first blooms of a new year with the snowdrops. That could be next month, weathers depending. Let's go for a ride in the garden.

In the barren time, green is a color. I'm still working on some additions in the shade of the forest. Big yellow pots are color too.

The winter garden is coming along. I do have to say this is the slowest garden I have ever grown in my life. Everything I have planted starts small. Rooted twigs and sticks are easy to come by.

Green is not the only color you can have in a winter garden. Plenty other colors to choose from. So I did.

Eleven years later, the under garden of winter is filling in. I told you it was slow. And there have been some failures along the way. I keep planting.

Lines of color slowly grow across barren winter ground.

It draws me outside.

Where the Japanese Holiday Tree is in full bloom. The lights turn on in the sunshine. It is a different kind of bloom.

The Japanese Holiday Tree

With dewdrops.

In A Hot Winter Drizzle

The winter under garden is now eleven years old. The plants are not all that age. The process of making the garden has been underway for that long. The colors come out best in winter drizzles. Click on a picture for the slide show and wander through a winter garden without snow.

Chop Chop

The Under Garden of winter now showing.

The Chop Down Is Imminent

I have been enjoying the slow reveal of the evergreen under garden of winter. The decay has been very upright this year.

Winter is here and work is slowing down enough that I am getting home rather early some days.

The time, the temperature, the wind and the energy will coincide soon enough. It is time for the Other Garden of Winter to come out.

In A Cold Mountain Shadow

This is the view from my front porch. I did good. Monet lives in that vibration of a mountain shadow. I could be going computer screen blind again too.

I got the next letter from the IRS. It basically said, 'Leaves us alone. We don't want to hear from you anymore.' The wheels are spinning. Who knows what will get spit out.

The Joe Pye fell down in the last wind and rain. I cleaned that up. I have not wanted to cut things down just yet. The meadow remnants are drying very nicely this year, almost in collaboration with the Under Garden of Winter as it slowly emerges. It is looking good.

Now rest your eyes in better focus. The view is changing every day.

Tinkering

I stayed home with the Japanese Holiday Tree because I could.

Some plants fell out of the ground and followed me home this week. They needed to go back in the ground. Two unusually robust Heucheras became nine big fat starts.

One large Doghobble, Leucothoe, became a dozen.

I don't have much regard for Heucheras because they have been a fussy plant for me. We shall see if they like it here and if the deer won't eat them.

One day there will be an evergreen hedge of Doghobble in the tree line behind the heiau.

I saw red viburnum berries.

Drawing new lines in evergreen for the under garden of winter. The new plants go up with a curve to the right behind the bamboo and uphill of the three large tree trunks in the center. Into the shade of the forest. That shade will slow them down.

How nice. My White Pine got buck whipped.

My hope is a Doghobble hedge is going to be a barrier that is harder to cross. There will be gates. One can hope.

It will also be the back wall and finished frame of the garden off on a tangent.

Off on a tangent, that is in some ways the story of my life. I tinker on.