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Dream Gardens: Planning for Reality

© Carol Wallace

It's hard to feel grateful when Nature dumps a ton of snow and ice all over the yard and obliterates tha garden. In my own yard the dwarf conifers and winter blooming heaths that I planted for winter color have become invisible under the thick white blanket. The grasses which a short while ago were creating a lot if landscape interest now lie shattered and tattered. It is a black and white landscape, with few features other than the giant trees, the arbors, gazebo and outbuildings.

But there are blessings hidden in this. The first is that snow is the best of all possible mulches - and my gardens are now tucked snugly under a nice heavy blanket of the stuff.The second is that, with all the little details hidden I can look out my window on a blank slate and get a better idea of where the problem areas lie.

Actually, the snow made me appreciate things about my own garden that I hadn't properly noticed before. Despite all the white, there are still things to look at - the walled garden and arbor, the low stone walls of the raised beds, the dwarf conifers and the scarlet limbs of the red-twigged dogwood, the elegant frame of the weeping cherry tree and the wild hairdo of the curly willow all provide interest even when deprived of their summer dress.

But I also see that there are gaps - areas where nothing of interest is going on - that make the basic cohesiveness of the garden plan fall apart. In other words - the "bones" of my garden need some work - a bit more structure here, a large rock there, a shrub over in that spot - to bring balance to the whole. I study this for a while, making mental notes- and then I get out this year's garden pictures.

When I first looked at these, I was only pleased that I had managed to capture such a good likeness ofthe garden. Now, in the dead of winter, I see these pictures with new eyes. The gaps and problem spots revealed by that white canvas out my window become equally apparent in the photographs. And the pictures serve as a reminder of plants now dormant under the snow that would be too easily dismissed if I relied on memory alone.

Using the pictures - the garden as it was - and the canvas that reveals it stripped almost bare allows me to see where there is too much activity, and where there is too little. With the leaves gone from climbing vines and rambling roses I can see where they need thinning out - a good job for late winter. And now that the daylilies have gone dormant in the island bed I can see what eluded me when their bright blooms distracted me. The lavender hedge that edges the bed is overwhelming the winter heath. I planted it for winter color and instead get a view of silver-grey. Next year some other bed will get a lavender hedge.

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