The sun shone in a blue sky, so I braved the chill to walk the creek path this morning. It wasn’t too cold at all. But when I got back, I saw that the fountain was still iced over. Behind it you can see the newly pruned pomegranate and plum.
January is progressing pretty much as usual in the garden, with the typically surprising, commonplace glories. Most of my landscaping does not go into dormancy, so every day reveals something showing its aliveness by a changed feature. A few asparagus had sprung up in the last week, so I cut them to put into soup for breakfast, along with a portion of those greens I harvested last week.
Dan the Landscaper added to the collection of new plants that arrived in nursery pots in November, and quite a few went into the ground last week, including the first-ever ceanothus that has lived on this property. It came with buds, and they are starting to open. Ceanothus is a genus of 50-60 species, sometimes called California Lilac, and I never remember their names, but we had a large one on our former property in another town, “long ago.”
When I type that common name it reminds me of my first encounter with this plant. My late husband and I had only been married a year when he returned from a backpacking trip with a friend, bringing me a flowering branch of white ceanothus that his hiking buddy had told him was California Lilac. The fragrance of those blooms imprinted itself on my mind. I think most of the blue or purple varieties are not that aromatic.
One plant I am most excited about having in my garden is Clary Sage — and I have three of them just planted. These are the white ones, which I haven’t had before, but I expect to love them as much as the purple I’ve had in the past. Clary sage is a biennial, so I have to remember to have new ones going in every year, if I want to have it blooming regularly in June. This picture below is from the back garden, in ’23. My little starts only have about ten leaves each at this point, and can’t be expected to bloom until spring of next year.
While I wait for the new landscaping to get installed and to grow up, I put in various bulbs and annuals, so that when I go in and out the front door I can be cheered by their colors. I see the leaves of muscari and anemones poking up, but right now it is the wholesome faces of the common pansies that greet me every day. This one is saying hello to you right now.
This morning was frosty enough to make ice in my garden fountain. I wore a thick wool sweater to church, and kept it on until I got home again five hours later and changed into my firewood clothes. Both the supply of logs near the wood stove and the nice rack I have in the garage needed replenishing from the stacks outside. I bring in a dozen or so logs at a time to dry out, and to have handy when it’s raining or just dark and I don’t want to go out.
Gladsome Lights 