Dark Days of January

January can be a wretched time for gardeners - not much to do save all those tiresome maintenance jobs such as cleaning and sharpening tools, sorting out your potting shed or cleaning the greenhouse glass. I can safely say that I have never performed the first of those tasks, occasionally carry out the second and have, just today, done the third. Small halo, then.

I take heart, though, when I read from The Art of Mindful Gardening a passage under Chapter 4, Winter, entitled 'The Yin of the Year':-

This is a time to be still, and to reflect; it is the yin of the year. Instead of the mad rush around the garden within which we are whirled during the hectic days of spring and summer, winter offers us the opportunity to slow down, to walk with ease and unhurried intent.

The author, Ark Redwood, goes on to write a paragraph headed 'Letting Winter Simply Be', and I quote:-

Nurseries often take advantage of the gardener's urge to plant by offering tempting deals for winter bedding. This is all well and good, as these plants can certainly help to brighten up the brown hues of winter, but I would urge a certain amount of restraint, not to cover every bare patch with floral expectation when a good mulch is all that is needed. I do accept that this is my own prejudice speaking, but as a long time naturalistic gardener I personally prefer gardens to reflect the time of year, and to me, gardens are meant to have gaps in the winter. They are not supposed to and should not be expected to flower away as if it were still the height of summer; barring of course those plants that naturally do wait until the shorter days before displaying their virtues. In the northern hemisphere, the natural world is meant to be stripped bare, and attempts to deny this go against the grain.

And thus I have given you the green light to be somewhat lazy and not to feel the remotest bit guilty if you really would much rather stay indoors beside the fire rather than be hunched over that empty border filling it frantically with gaudy and precocious primulas and pansies as the rain lashes down upon your head.

In the brief interludes between rain and wind storms, I have to admit to poking my nose outdoors (driven mainly by the need to throw balls for the dog), and have noted a number of small things:-

- the daphnes and viburnams are flowering as are the tiny pink cyclamen coums
- the snowdrops are pushing through steadily
- the daffodils and crocuses likewise
- the aged cornus is looking nicely red and cheerful after its tentative pruning last year
- there is a broad bean in flower (left over from the summer)
- the leeks and celeriac are still maturing
- the wallflowers are showing signs of colour already
- the yellow tails of hazel catkins are already dangling in the wind
- the hellebores are flowering splendidly and adding that one dash of colour to the borders
- the raspberries are budding
- the espalied young apple trees are already showing leaves
- the magnolia stellata is also budding
- the lawn is sodden and the moss thriving

In other words, there are signs of life everywhere. Not for us this year (so far) a significant period where life is suspended, where the ground lies stiff and frozen and nature is utterly dormant. It may yet come.

Meanwhile, in recent days, some basic tasks have been achieved, albeit at a languid pace:-

- well-rotted manure has been sourced and dug into a number of the raised beds in my vegetable garden
- the greenhouse glass has been cleaned (not without me damaging further an already cracked pane, much to my annoyance)
- some early broad beans have been sown and placed in the propagator, together with some purple sprouting broccoli
- some sweet pea seeds have been sown around the base of a scrappy rose in a pot on the terrace, just because they might cheer things up a bit later in the year
- ridiculous numbers of seed packets have been purchased at the garden centre (illiciting an observant  'you're going to be busy!' from the man behind me in the queue) only to find I had replicas of most of them lurking in odd places around the potting shed, greenhouse and kitchen (hence one should probably tidy it up on a more regular basis in an effort to save money, if nothing else)
- a large number of brambles have been cleared from my 'wild' garden as it was getting too, well, wild (and I kept tripping over them)
- the holly hedge dividing the 'wild' garden (you could also call it the 'orchard' if you weren't being too picky) choking the Portuguese laurel and a Prunus has been significantly reduced in height to allow more light and air to circulate
- more daffodil bulbs have been planted in the grass around the apple trees (in said 'orchard')
- leaves have been cleared and more borders mulched with my home-produced compost
- fish, blood, and bone meal has been sprinkled around the daffodils (too many of which were blind last year) and the bases of the apple trees
- pots have been planted up with winter flowers and greenery (not a pansy or primula in sight - just white cyclamens, heathers, ivies, skimmias and the like)
- the ground has been tidied and cleared around many of the mature trees and hedges (thank you Ian!) and,
- an incinerator has been purchased (to burn the stuff from my vegetable garden which I don't want on the compost heap e.g pine needles, diseased material, laurel etc).....

.....but I haven't cleaned any pots or sharpened any tools (despite eventually finding the tool sharpener, bought last year and still in its awkward packaging, in a drawer). Sometimes life seems simply too short for such things.

Instead, I have looked at the gaps in my borders and felt pleased that they have been mulched for the first time in ten years; I have contemplated buying more beautiful hellebores to spread liberally about the place; I have squelched across the lawn wondering if I should actually get round to spiking it this year; I have bought wildflower seeds to scatter on the scratched bare earth where the brambles had taken stranglehold; I have watched the birds filling their little feathery bellies on the feeder (not to mention the squirrel); I have contemplated which shrubs to prune/cut back/remove; I have planned what to grow in my vegetable garden; and I have enjoyed the skeleton of the beeches, the oaks, the ashes, the prunus, the sycamores and the elders on rare sunny days, permitting soft golden glimpses of the sheep and hills beyond the garden confines.

Winter, if nothing else, is a time to take stock, to contemplate and gently prepare for the busy gardening year ahead.