Letter to the Garden: January 2023

By Ozhene @papaver

Dear Garden

Here we are in the new year at that moment when it feels like I am almost holding my breath. We have just tiptoed past the day when the mornings as well as the evenings start to get a little lighter. This is always a day I look forward to, the light returning.

Letter to the Garden: January 2023

As usual dear garden I have been indulging in some seed buying. Too much seed buying most likely, even though I try not to over-buy. I even keep lists and keep all the seeds together so I can check easily what I have. One day I shall get it right, one day. At the moment it is too early to sow much at all. I sowed some Persicaria orientalis seeds the other day because they like some cold. Most seeds are not so keen on cold and also need more light. It will be months before the majority of the seeds are sown and until then I can hear them scratching at the sides of their packets 'free me, free me' they whisper, yet to do so would be almost certain death by rot, by damp, by failure. The seeds and myself have to be patient.

We will soon be at snow time, I always predict snow around about the 3rd week of January as that is when most often it arrives here. I wonder if we will get much snow? I do not want too much snow, I hate driving in it in, I am on record as being a snow-wimp; but I like the peace it brings to the garden, the covering, the blanketing, the duvet-day of sleep it brings until the thaw starts leading to inevitable waterlogging and often death to those plants that can stand the cold but not the cold wet. Dear garden, I suppose I am saying I like the snow in the moment (as long as I am not driving) but not the aftermath.

So here I am, holding my breath, waiting for the snow, waiting for Spring. I am looking forward to this year in the garden, I have so much I want to do and so much I need to do. In the meantime I have been spending sometime re-reading my garden journal which now chart 22 years of my gardening and my gardens. This is keeping me occupied and also reminding me of my love of gardening and for you my dear garden and the gardens I have left behind.

Your loving gardener

Take care and be kind.