Before A Winter Storm Bloom Day

I cheated and took Bloom Day pictures a few days early. A big winter storm was scheduled to arrive today. I wanted pictures of the growing winter Under Garden and the blooms before it was all buried in snow. Word is we may get up to a foot of snow in the next two days. It has already begun.

For a January Bloom Day in the depths of winter, I give you the Witch Hazel 'Jelena', unmarred and undeterred from full bloom by the previous bouts of winter last week.

The warm spell prior to the actual onset of winter enticed the witch hazels to bloom several weeks early.

'Jelena' has refused to turn back and in the last week 'Diane' has begun to let red petals peek out. I did not get a picture of that.

But I knew a long time ago that my garden could not rely on blooms alone. The Barren Time was five months too long without a garden's greenery. I had come here infused with tropical winds.

So I started drawing directly in the barren ground.

I needed a garden to get me through the winter.

Don't let me forget the Snowdrops for January's Bloom Day. They are coming up by the thousands across the mountain top. Flowers don't hurt a winter garden. When you try, you can have blooms close to year round in a garden far from the tropics.

Ten years later that Under Garden has become.

Along with other accumulations.

I keep drawing on barren winter ground. A garden continues expanding to become, something unusual.