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Category: Perennial gardening | Posted: Sun Dec 04, 2011 4:13 pm

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I always think of Hamlet's soliloquy this time of year but more from the perspective that it really is not apt! Hamlet is contemplating suicide in his speech as he is so distraught to learn of his father's murder and his uncle's treachery. As I look out my dining room window at my garden at rest, I see the dying back of foliage, dead stalks, lifeless trees. By profession, I am a therapist and I regularly hear from my clients their very negative associations to winter being a time of death, of isolation, desolation. (I actually do hear these sentiments). Perhaps this is why I regularly scan for the very subtle signs of on-going life: buds on the rhododendrons, the still green foliage of the hardier perennials, the red tips of branches. I enjoy looking for these signs of life in all the dying back of plants, and my eyes rest on them, and in fact seek them out, rather than on the browning foliage.

Partly I also enjoy the subtlety. Garishness, bright colors, "a riot of bloom" as we are apt to say does have its place in the middle of summer, but so do the subtle hues of winter. I enjoy watching how the tips of the trees change color as winter progesses until early spring when it becomes quite obvious that something is just waiting to burst forth. Do you ever notice how oak trees hang on to their dead leaves for eons, much longer than other trees until finally shedding them in...?January?...(I will have to note this year when they finally drop them).

I think gardeners in particular are used to thinking this way. We know to prepare our beds for winter, to protect our (living) plants. To help them ease into dormancy, to feel glad that they have a good drink of rain before the ground freezes. Jerry Sullivan (Garden Stewer who breeds daylilies) has described the very black shiny daylily seeds that the rodents all crave. He advises those interested in raising daylilies to scarf these seeds up before the animals get them. They are indeed little germs of life amidst the dying foliage. A nice thought to remember in the coldness of winter.


Last edited: Sun Dec 04, 2011 4:19 pm

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Jerry Sullivan wrote on Sun Dec 04, 2011 5:00 pm:

The daylily seeds indeed will provide nourishment for the creatures looking for a meal during the winter. The travels of mice are documented in the snow, mapping out their nightly forays. The multitude of fall seeds are reduced significantly as spring approaches. The old adage still applies, "Get them while the getting is good." Happy hunting.

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Cayuga Morning wrote on Sun Dec 04, 2011 5:17 pm:

Ah! Good point, yet another sign of life: the little footprints and tailprints left by foraging animals and birds.

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