. . . a writer who gardens is sooner or later going to write a book about the subject–
I take that as inevitable. One acquires one’s opinions and prejudices,
picks up a trick or two, learns to question supposedly expert judgments,
reads, saves clippings, and is eventually overtaken by the desire to pass it all on. (viii)
1 Jan 2018. It’s midnight, end of the first day of the year–and thus the time for my first entry in this year’s garden journal. Since Barnes and Noble is no longer selling them, I will miss the Bunde notebooks I have used the last two years. But this sturdy, lined, black Canson notebook will offer more flexibility in the length of my daily entries.
It was bitter cold today; last night C.R. set all-time record lows, temp down to -21F at the airport; the lowest temp I saw on the garage thermometer was -17F. I worked in the garden studio in the backyard this morning. The space heater was on non-stop and the sun was shining, so it was quite comfy. Outside the studio, however, was a sharp breeze, creating a wind chill at least 10 degrees below the thermometer’s temp.
Yesterday afternoon I finished editing and posted my December Garden Shed essay to the Alum Garden website so today’s work lacked any distinguishable focus. I did pull up the Alum Garden’s master plant list, which was not updated last year. I pondered several format options for creating a comprehensive list of plants in the Alum Garden but could not decide on a satisfactory layout. [One year later, I’m still wrestling with that project.]
2 Jan. Another sunny day but wind chill well below zero. Low temp at airport last night was minus 23F, new low record for this date. Previous low was -19F in 1979, our first winter in C.R. After having lived in southern Texas for five years, we found that winter memorably brutal, over two months with no daytime highs above freezing.
Worked in the garden studio this morning. Typed notes from back issues of Horticulture. The pile of over 100 of these old magazines has information/suggestions I would like in my typed notes, but this is a project I often ignore whenever I find another task more appealing-- probably because the pile is so large and appears so overwhelming. But those issues have a lot of useful advice that will get lost if I don’t get them into my notes.
This afternoon at Coe I picked up my mail, which included a dozen garden books I ordered in December. So many books I would love to read–plus several big reference books, such as Hortus III by the L. H. Bailey staff at Cornell. After depositing the books in the garden shed, I did a walk around the garden, taking about 50 photos, all shot in monochrome black & white.
Link to the complete Winter 2019 Garden Kalendar.