Project 365 - Color in the Snow

I am a lazy gardener.  I've grown into this role and I admit to finding it very comfy.  This has not always been the case.  Ten years ago, when we moved into our house, there was virtually no garden.  A row of rather anemic Impatience pretty much summed up the level of horticultural creativity.  Never one to shy away from a challenge, I set about planning and planting and planting and planting and planting.

It was a labor of love. I tended my garden all year long.  I planted for the local wildlife.  I turned the grassy area behind hundred year old boxwood into a bluestone patio.  I removed roll after roll of sod and replaced it with perennial beds dotted with Japanese Maples and native shrubs.  I picked my way through the rocky woodland border working in 4 seasons of interest visible from my kitchen window.  And as I went, I placed pieces of whimsy.  A fairy house that Maddie and I covered with bark and moss we had picked up under the giant Shag bark hickory tree out front.  A bench I made from a slab of wood harvested from a long gone black walnut.

I used to move all these things and many other treasures inside as soon as the weather threatened cold.  Placing them in a corner of the garage to hibernate through the winter.

One year I procrastinated long enough to avoid the fall garden cleanup altogether. Winter came as it has this year.  Snow blanketed the beds and laid in the tree branches as it does today. But, laziness does has it's percs. Around the corner, tucked away under the cedar trees, blooms a bit of spring. A splash of color.  A sly smile of the season to come.