Sleep Well

The garden is soundly sleeping under about 15 inches (and counting) of snow. There have been holidays, work schedules, some rambling about here and there, and the gardener has been disinclined and uninspired to put pencil to paper and create a blog posting these last couple of months. Having written about the garden for one complete year, four seasons now, the story of it seems, for the time being at any rate, to have come full circle and to a full stop.

Apologies, dear readers, but this winter it just seems repetitive and unenlightened to address, yet again, the weary topics of garden catalogue browsing, bird feeding and watching, "structural" plantings for winter garden visual interest, or the other subjects to which garden writers turn during the dormant season to flesh out their columns. Can there really still be anyone, anywhere in the gardening world, who doesn't know what to put in a bird feeder?

Plus, maybe it is the curmudgeon in me, but my personal opinion is that the best looking objects in the winter garden, other than the dark and handsome evergreens, are all the things that are not plants -- rocks, tree trunks, snow drifts and dunes, bird houses, benches, garden art. Ornamental grasses, thistles, sedums and other plants and seedheads widely recommended to be left intact into winter to add attractiveness to the garden landscape look, to my eyes, simply dead and dessicated. Grey or brown or blackened with frost, they just aren't an appealing feature of the winter garden, and detract from rather than enhance its winter wardrobe. Winter is not the season for showcasing plants in the garden. They are somnabulant, and just ought to be left in peace.

And, for now, Michigan Garden Muse will also be left in peace. Perhaps the gardener will return next month, in two months, next spring. Until such time, a very happy, healthful, good cheer and glad tidings New Year to all, and to all a good night.