december musings
It’s been so warm this week, with temperatures in the sixties and thick summer downpours, that I almost forgot we’re in the middle of December. A few days of rain brought the plants out of their winter slumber, and now everything is lush and green again, under blue skies and sunshine, just like it is supposed to be in spring.
The warm climate landscape is confusing me, I feel like I should be taking care of some gardening task and I’m putting it off, it’s hard to imagine, just by looking out the window, that gardening is on pause until March. Last year I used the opportunity afforded by the warm December to plant more daffodils, but this year the bulbs went into the ground on schedule, the cleaning was done on schedule, the winterizing of the gardening tools went right on schedule, I really have nothing to do.
This idle time feels even more strange a week before Christmas, when everything else is a whirlwind of activity. I get out in the back yard every now and then, enticed by the warm weather, and it feels out of time altogether, the land where things stood still.
I just remembered that I do have something to do, as far as the garden is concerned, this winter. I don’t have any hybrid roses left, and the once bloomers, as spectacular as they are, only put out flowers two weeks a year. I waited patiently for the hybrid teas to recover, but sadly, even the shoots that grew from below the graft bud died this summer, bested by four dreadful winters.
In the meantime, the ivy, a victim of inclement weather itself, is basking in the sunlight and sending some garden love. It finally recovered from the harsh freeze that burned all of its leaves the winter before last, it took it two whole summers just to return to normal.
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