Janustory - Day 5

Today's installment: Eyes gritty, watching moon rise. #janustory #wordcount5

I am thankful that the days are gradually getting longer. With a rural commute, daylight becomes more important when driving where there are no streetlights and farms are sprinkled intermittently. So today, I give you a photo of a glorious sunset because taking pictures of the sickle moon is particularly tricky.

Snow Love! Even Two Feet of It



The redbud casts a bewitching shadow


Snowpocalypse, or whatever you want to call the blizzard of February 2011, has dumped about two feet of snow on us.  After digging ourselves out and the sore arms that went with it, I'm still in love with snow.  Why?  I love the sight, sound, and feel - all of it.  I"m an addict, I'll admit.  As a gardener, I did some research on why snow is good for us.

1). Snow insulates.  It keeps soil temperatures from fluctuating, so those borderline plants have a better shot at making it.  In general, under a blanket of snow, soil temperatures can be as much as two degrees warmer for each inch of snow accumulation as compared to air temperature. That can be quite a bit warmer, especially when our night time temps can be in the negatives. It also means that perennials will be less likely to heave out of the ground in our usual freeze/thaw cycle.

2). Snow conserves soil moisture.  Our evergreens, especially, benefit from moist winter soils.  It keeps them from losing too much water through their needles and becoming damaged. 

3). Snowmelt percolates slowly through the soil, gradually watering our plants.

4). The landscape looks pretty gorgeous in new fallen snow.  I find that our huge spruces and pines take center stage in snow.  Winter sun casts amazing new shadows on snow.  All those perennials I left up take on new dimension, especially the grasses.

Will I get sick of it pretty soon?  Probably.  Yet, my trees will be nicely watered in early spring!

So crisp, so clean

That hydrangea is really about three feet high
 and finally something covered the darn gas meter

Somewhere under all that are the retaining walls. 
The Stanwell Perpetual roses on either side of the steps will
 be very happy with the snow melt!

Light in Winter

As the sun is lowering in the sky and days are shorter, I find the light turns almost silvery in winter.  The trees have lost their leaves and their interwoven branches are gilded in the sun.  We often speak of four-season plants and sometimes it is difficult to articulate to someone why I choose something for winter interest because we often focus on berries or evergreen leaves.  I plant for bark and shape more than fruit or flower.  The birds will clean out the neighbor's crabapple, but I'll still have its charcoal bark and gnarled limbs to admire outside the study window.  The flowers of my beloved China Snow Pekin lilac tree (Syringa pekinensis 'China Snow') are spectacular for three weeks in June.  The graceful limbs and peely bark are stunning backlit or dusted in snow. This year, I was able to be pretty ruthless in the pruning and shape it in the directions I want it to go.  I'm very pleased with how it is becoming more oriental in architecture. It's growing about two to three feet a year and nicely blocks the neighbor's deck and play fort.  The squirrels find it a convenient highway along the fence and a launching point for attempts at the bird feeder.  I leave the seeds on because I think they add a nice tawny brown to the winter landscape.  Fortunately, the little seedlings are very shallow rooted and easy to pull.  If you have a full sun spot with good drainage, Pekin lilac is a terrific small to intermediate sized ornamental tree.  The eighty-year-old ones at the Morton Arboretum are somewhere around fifty feet high, so I'm wouldn't plan on this being a small plant.  Mine is approaching the twenty foot mark in just a few years.

Isn't that bark gorgeous?

Finally becoming a tree instead of a really big shrub.