By Judith Canty Graves
I believe that gardeners are always thinking of the next season as they appreciate the current one. This is especially true during the winter. When looking at a frozen landscape, it can seem almost impossible to imagine a summer garden.
But this is the perfect time to anticipate a summer garden. I use winter months to look at all of the seed catalogs that come in the mail and fantasize about what to grow when warm weather returns. The pictures in these catalogs help me visualize what my garden will look like in the spring and summer. Two of my favorites are from White Flower Farm in Connecticut and Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds in Missouri. These catalogs are comprehensive and contain stunning photography.
While browsing through catalogs for ideas, I consult my garden journal from the previous year. In it I keep track of dates, weather, what I grew and how well the plants did. If a particular plant didn’t grow well, I’ll plant something else the following year. I list my favorite plants so I can repeat their success. I also check my photographs of plants that I have grown as a visual record of how they look in my yard.
One consideration is how big plants will grow. Squash, for example, needs room to spread out. When planting squash seeds, I allow several feet of garden space for the vines and large leaves that will appear. Knowing a plant’s needs is important before making a selection of seeds or seedlings.
Another consideration is where to plant. Choosing the right location for plants is a major part of garden planning. I observe how the sun hits my yard during different seasons to see which areas are in full sun, partial sun or full shade. This makes a big difference in selecting locations for plants and visualizing the outcome I want.
With these considerations in mind, I walk around my yard in winter to observe the bare landscape. In colder months the essentials of the landscape appear. Shrubs with lots of leafy foliage in the summer, such as hydrangeas, have bare branches at this time of year that reveal how much room they have for future growth or if they need dividing and transplanting. Tall, flowering annuals, such as tithonia, are gone by winter, freeing up space and allowing me to visualize different possibilities for what might grow there.
Even though the winter season can be cold and brown, I appreciate the bare ground as a blank canvas for next summer’s garden. It is the perfect time to reflect on the past growing season and to imagine the next one.
Judith Canty Graves is a home gardener with a background in photojournalism. She lives in Asheville. To see more of her garden photography, visit TheObservantGardener.com.
