January, 2015: a mild flavored winter

Living in the Netherlands I am always confused when a new gardening season starts. In some years you do not really get a winter to speak off, it just sort of continues, from mildly cool autumn, into mildly cool spring. I saw a few snowdrops already popping up there and there before today's cold spell, so the real garden season is not that far away. I suppose some species crocuses should be appearing as well, to think of it I already saw one soggy little bloom in our front garden a few weeks ago, a first of its kind, just looking too sad to even bother with finding a camera.

So what to do in the garden, when everything is still in a dreamy state? For one, the urgent task is pruning of the trees and other deciduous things, because here we do not really get that much of an opportunity to safely do it in a cold dry spell. It was a luxury in the old garden in the z5, you could not only pick a day, the weather, but even if you did not get around doing it in January, February was still a safe bet, you could wait for a nice weather to have it as a pleasant experience outdoors. Not here, February usually is when things start to wake up, and in some cases, begin to grow (I have learned it the hard way with the clematis). Although generally it is too early to prune the roses, Paul's Himalayan Musk will have to get it soon, since it takes about a whole weekend to tidy it up, and the debris probably will go to the green container for the next few weeks.

Another big task is... shopping. Its about a right time to order the seeds and generally make a plan what to possibly buy and where in all earthly gods name it can be squeezed in. Loosing a growing season is a big deal with the trees, and making wrong choices for a small garden is even bigger deal.

Otherwise, I suppose it is also perfectly fine to enjoy what a local winter has to offer. :) Even if it does not snow (it can happen in some years, but the snow often is gone within a week), the winter here usually has this lovely frostbitten look, with the deep mists covering in the distance.