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A Gardener's Journey into Winter.

© Carol Wallace

In winter, like the Queen said to Alice, I can imagine as many as six impossible things before breakfast - and, for a time, believe in them.

Winter is the only time when I can achieve a perfect garden effortlessly, when I can enjoy endless flights of fancy with my garden design. I can use trees that are too large, because they will never outgrow my imagined space; I can plant sunny flowers in shade and bog plants in the dry soil beneath the maples. I can employ the finest materials with reckless abandon, and erect structures of fantastic complexity with panache. In short, my imagination is what is fertile in winter, and I enjoy it to the max.

I know that I won't miss those dream gardens in spring. I will more than content with those insignificant little green nubs of joy that say that my real season has begun.

But my winter dreams are rarely wasted. Often, my flights of fancy are actually realized - although in a scaled down form. What seems like whimsy in winter yields nuggets of possibility in spring. They give me something to aim for, new things to look forward to. And so, as fall departs, I dream impossible things, and sharpen my pruning shears just in case those yews become even more loathsome than they already seem. Perhaps not penguins - but puffins seem possible. . .