Garden Therapy for Winter Blues

Don’t get me wrong, I love winter and right now, snow is gently falling and it’s beautiful. When the snow turns grey and slushy and there’s not much sunlight, I, like many others, become a bit forlorn and start thinking of better weather. To help me through the funk, I think about and look at photos of my garden.

I remember what it was like when we first moved into this house many years ago. It was a new development and a blank canvas; my landscape was just grass and a tree. Here was my opportunity to splash colour on that canvas; I could do whatever I wanted, I was the mistress of my domain.  I pored over gardening brochures, looked through gardening books, bought more gardening books, watched gardening shows on HGTV, spent too much time at gardening centres and visited friends with established gardens who happily shared their plants.  Another thing I did was what I like to call, “rock picking”.  On weekends, I would drag the girls to side roads and construction sites to find nice size rocks to use around the garden beds I was creating for the fabulous landscape I envisioned. They were not thrilled then but we laugh about it now.

Our area has clay soil so it had to be emended. I hauled a lot of manure, topsoil, peat moss and mulch. I even set up a compost bin.  In the beginning, I fell in love with every plant and planted as many as I could but eventually reality bit and I realized I had to be practical and add plants that would do well in this environment.  I’ve managed to have trees and shrubs (evergreen and deciduous), ground cover, vines (on the fence and side walls), spring bulbs, grasses, flowering and non-flowering (well not showy) perennials and a small pond. 

 

Overtime my garden has evolved. The tiny spruce trees that I could decorate easily at Christmas are now towering over the garden.  Some plants have become invasive and have to be dug out and restricted. A few did poorly after their sunny spot became shady and had to be moved to another part of the garden. Some just did not survive, like the torch flower I loved. The bare spots that were filled in with annuals are now full of perennials and annuals are now placed in urns and pots for that extra splash of colour. 

I think I did well with the mix of plantings to ensure interest in the garden throughout the seasons; from crocuses, tulips, daffodils, forsythia, lilacs, bleeding heart and other spring blooming plants through to day lilies, purple coneflowers, astilbe, Shasta daisies, black-eyed susans, phlox, yarrow, evening primrose and more in summer to asters, sedum and burning bush in fall.  One thing though, I’ve never grown roses; meant to but never did.

Much of my time in the garden is now spent, not in planting as in previous years, but in maintenance. There is much pruning to be done to keep the shrubs in check, weeding and watering. I still amend the soil and occasionally when I’m at a garden centre and see an interesting plant, I’ll try to find a spot for it. Last summer I found curly grass; couldn’t resist running my fingers through it. I bought a few, put them in the urns and then added annuals; I loved the look.

It’s a small space (back and front) but I like what my garden has become not just to me, family and friends but to the assortment of birds, butterflies and bees that visit the birdbath and flowers; the squirrels running along the fence or getting a drink from the birdbath. I once watched one industrious little squirrel run back and forth in the front garden, gathering leaves to build a nest in one of the trees.  A cat sometimes comes up to the back door causing my kitties to go into frenzy.  It’s even hard to stay mad at the raccoons that constantly dragged the water lily out of the pond and ate the water hyacinths.

Gardening is great therapy. When I am digging in the soil, planting or re-potting, cutting the grass, trimming the hedge, spreading mulch or manure, watering or just simply being in the garden, there is no room for negative thoughts.  I become excited seeing the new shoots poking through the snow in spring, the beautiful colours of the flowers, the changes to the garden as the seasons progress and when winter is beginning to seem a bit too long, I look at photos of my garden and smile in anticipation.

"Cares melt when you kneel in your garden." Unknown

"An addiction to gardening is not all bad when you consider all the other choices in life." Unknown

"Spring is nature's way of saying, "Let's party!"-- Robin Williams

Will keep you posted.