Snowscapes

Today it is snowing, I think our 3rd occurrence since Thanksgiving. Hopefully this will mean we will have the so loved traditional 'White Christmas' we all love here in New England. Sometimes such lovely happenings leave some folks indoors due to an inability to navigate thru such weather physically and for others perhaps a psychological distaste for the event.

Today I prefer to gather the beauty of the event. I am fortunate to have a lovely yard to experience from outdoors should I choose to. Anyone can however find beauty with this season from anywhere they view from the inside. I've put together a few very amature photos of what I found this morning looking out my windows and doors. I'm sure you could too. Some perhaps see the day as one of gloom without the sun shining bright, but if you stop and really look there is a lot of wonderfulness out there without the sun.

I'm always amazed at the monochromatic setting a snowfall provides. I appreciate many areas of my landscape that I might otherwise overlook for that colorful rose calling me or stand of flowering perennials offering their chorus of blooms. Today I'm connected to the black and white of it all. Trees that I can now see their beautiful twirling branches reaching for the clouds, shrubs with their bright colored berries like a string of lights on the Christmas Tree, and of course the beautiful conifers our Zone provides us naturally.

I took my little camera and attempted to capture some of it all to share with you. Mostly I did this little exercise to show all of you that you need not let 'cabin fever' get the best of you this season; instead, on those days ahead that you are unable to get out and be 'in the moment' of it all, stop and take a few photos of the beauty that is out there busting through your windows and doorways for you to see and enjoy! The simplest things i find often have the greatest reward.

This is a great time to take note of what you may want to add to your garden and/or landscape to provide you with much sought after interest during our long winter months. Plants, trees, and shrubs with 'winter interest' perhaps provide color such as the native Cornus stolonifera sericea(Red osier dogwood) with its red stems cannot be missed during our snow covered season. I have used the cultivar 'Arctic Fire' in large container plantings that remain outdoors over the winter, providing a stunning look especially during our Holiday Season. The popular Hydrangea petiolaris
(Climbing Hydrangea) provides great interest in winter, the blossoms of Early Summer hang on holding the snow like little umbrellas and the bark is beautiful with it's cinnamon color and peeling look.
Of course there are the conifers, all of which provide their own individual shape and color to the winter garden. Mix them up, like a kaleidescope, greens, blues, large needled, small needled, thin, thick needled, to me they are part of the glue that holds the rest of the garden together in winter, with our without snow. I have many of our native pinus strobus (eastern white pine)about my yard, they provide a wonderful curtain like back drop for many other shrubs and plants, and with new fallen snow they are quite grand, not to mention I didn't have to buy them or plant them. I've decided to put a Pinus strobus 'pendula' on my list, taking inspiration from the look many of the young Pinus strobus in my yard have today. I am imagining how nice it will look next to a large boulder.
Remember too about interests that may not be growing, but of a natural state, such as boulders. My husband is a rock lover, and creates whimsy for the garden with them. He makes interesting rock chains we have hanging about in areas where you can see and touch them. Whenever you find something that 'speaks' to you or 'calls' you, definitely try to include it in your garden or landscape, it will give back to you pleasantly, repeatedly.

So, if you think you need something to get you thru this winter (and trust me, you do!), grab your camera, have fun taking some photos from inside looking out, and try a little exercise creating a list of things you'd like to add to your view. Libraries have wonderful books on winter interest for the garden and many web sites have suggestions that may help point you in the direction you'd like to travel on this little journey, It's free, and will give you a nice enjoyable ride from December thru March!

Keep Your Eye on the Cone!

Cones, Cones, Beautiful and Lots of Cones Everywhere!

I had the pleasure of visiting the White Mountains earlier this month and hiked Mt. Osceola with some friends. It was a glorious day, the rains had stopped and the sun shone brightly. We enjoyed cool temps along the trail and an outstanding view at the summit. Check out the photos taken on our hike and enjoy the exquisite color of these cones! The summit was so full of them one had to force the eye to look beyond at the sites of the other mountain tops in view.

As many of you are noticing the conifer cones this year are quite abundant. You can see them at the tops of the trees from a distance, pulling the upper branches down into an umbrella like arch. The cones for many conifers actually take more than a year to reach their mature size, did you know that?

The red squirrels are busy trying to harvest the cones in the trees that surround my property. It sounded at first like someone either was hitting a slew of homers that fell the hardball in our yard or maybe they were throwing stones. We of course went out to 'check out' what the heck was going on. And thunk, thunk, then thunk thunk, thunk thunk thunk we heard them falling.

No it wasn't the wind, the air was still, so what was it causing them to drop? There are too many on the tree my husband said, I disagreed, I knew all too well what those little four legged furry tooth sawing, gnawing creatures were up to. Sure enough I found em, Red Squirrels, up at the top of the 50' or higher white pine, harvesting the crop! And below, it was 'bombs away'. The ground littered with fresh new cones not yet ready to fall. All nice and thin and green and fresh pine aroma in the air. Alongside of these perfect cones were the cartoonish looking skeletized cone, nothing left but a long thin post with a pointed top and rounded bottom.

So, keep your eye on the cones! For a couple of reasons, they just may fall on your head if you have a busy critter like we do in the neighborhood, and because they just look so beautiful hanging there in large clusters like I don't ever recall seeing before. Perhaps I just never noticed because they didn't get harvested by nature until later in the season when they may have lost a few on their own, or maybe I was just always busier that I am these days to have looked up enough to catch such a site.

I'm grateful this year for whatever the reason we have such a grand display of cones.
I'm also grateful that I'm able to enjoy and experience the journey to the summit of a mountain.
Nature is the most perfect designer of the landscape. I am most inspired by the plans that nature creates all by itself. Thank you Planet Earth for allowing us to join you for the view!





The human spirit needs places where nature has not been rearranged by the hand of man. ~Author Unknown