The cocktail garden

Warm today, 40-ish, but it will be a while before we have cocktails out here again.

Relentless

We're running short on places to put the snow. Another foot or more a few days ago. Frigid temperatures in the forecast again this week.

Meanwhile, the deer move through the woods in the backyard.

Deep and cold: Seventh Day December

 The view out to the vegetable garden. Below: Homemade vegetable soup.

We're enveloped in winter. We have just under 3 feet of snow on the ground thanks to a three-day storm earlier this week. Bitter cold followed almost as soon as the snow stopped.

It's beautiful and brutal. Time to break out the snowshoes and stoke ourselves with hot food, hot tea and our favorite port.

With everything buried, it's even more comforting to have a simple Saturday supper of vegetable soup with carrots, onions, potatoes, green beans and tomatoes from the garden. The harvest lives on.

Make yourself a cup of tea or pour yourself a glass of port and take a look at Seventh Day December.

Toasting the melting

An evening drink on the deck for the first time since October? September? A warm, sunny Saturday after weeks of snow, cold and clouds. Plenty of snow still out there, but the melt is under way.

Enough with the snow!

Through the front window this morning. Yeah, that's another 15 or more inches out there.

And out a back window.

April showers ...

The day started with rain, then sleet, then snow and by Saturday evening there was another 8-10 inches of heavy, wet snow on the ground and weighing down the conifers.

The top of the red pine near the driveway was of special concern. We'd lost the top twice already to ice and snow in past years, so Brian pulled out the roof rake to shake some of that snow loose.

The rest of the trees will have to wait for sunshine and warmer temperatures today.

 The front yard at dusk.

The backyard at dusk.

Leap Day snowstorm

The view through the living room window this afternoon.

Winter finally arrived today. Much wind and snow all day.
 

 The front yard.

 Drifts by the garage.

And drifts by the deck.

Short days

We are moving steadily toward the shortest day of the year. Here, the sun peeks through the trees across the road just after 9 a.m. Tuesday.

Through the home office window this morning

There is one patch of bare ground in the yard. In a semi-sheltered area near the back hill. Southern exposure. Can you say deer magnet?

Whitewashed morning

Fresh snow, pewter skies ...

Here comes the sun

 

We're definitely seeing more daylight in our days. Seed-sowing begins soon!

Window Box Week

This is the window box Angela worked on the day I was there.

Here's the vision: Window boxes and pots full of greenery outside every home and business in town from now through the holidays and into March. It's not such a crazy proposition when you listen to Angela Stocke, the creative brains behind Angela's Bella Flora in Duluth.

The sign welcomes visitors.

Angela wants to create a winter container movement. We live in a part of the world where it's mostly cold and snowy from November through March -- a window box arrangement on the porch or outside the front door can help take the edge off until spring.

I learned some of the finer points of outdoor window box design at one of Angela's demonstrations during the recent Window Box Week celebration at her shop. Here's how she built the box with the bird and the flame willow in the photo at the top of the post. It took her less than 45 minutes to pull it off.

 A bird's nest is tucked into the bottom of the window box.

Start with a base of greenery using a variety of traditional greens such as spruce, pine and balsam. The display is meant to be viewed from one side so build up the back so you have a background against which color and do-dads can strut their stuff. Mix up the texture with other greens such as Port Orford cedar and yellow incense cedar that are more wispy and lacy. Add some leafy branches of boxwood and seeded eucalyptus. All are stuck into water-saturated blocks of floral foam in the bottom of the box. The greenery hides the foam.

Angela works on a second window box.

Angela had decided on a color palette of orange and pink for this box so she added branches of pepperberry and some fake orangy persimmons. The pink blossoms on the right are protea, a tropical plant that Angela is experimenting with in cold-weather window boxes. She expects it will dry in place and look good for several months.

The bird perches on flame willow that Angela buys from a farm in Wisconsin. The stems are flexible and malleable. She stuck some on either side of the box, bent them toward each other and used a wire wrapped with brown tape to hold them together. (The bird hides the connection.) 

The final touch was a bird's nest with eggs tucked into the foliage. A surprise, Angela said, for people who take the time to look a little deeper into the arrangement.

MORE ADVICE FOR DESIGNING YOUR OWN

1. Choose a color palette. Sticking to a palette keeps you on track and allows you to collect various tchotchkes over the years to add to your design scheme. That also keeps the budget in check because you're not buying all new stuff every year.

2. Look at what you have in your own yard and garden. Maybe you can build a base with stuff you have for free and then spend a few dollars on pepperberry or variegated boxwood or sparkly balls or sticks. Add and subtract items so the display doesn't shout Christmas or Hanukkah around Valentine's Day.

3. Use standard floral foam and make sure it's super-soaked. Put the foam on top of the water in a bucket and let the water slowly fill all the pores in the foam. Don't force it.

4. These boxes are meant for cold-weather display. Use wood or plastic containers. Once everything has frozen in place, you won't need to water. And the display will last for months.

Those are brown magnolia leaves among the evergreens. This box is a nice balance of humble (readily available conifers) and Hollywood (sparkly balls).

Pheasant feathers and huge sugar pine cones are easy companions in this box on display outside the store. The cones don't come cheap -- almost 6 bucks for one -- but they are impressive.

Shoppers examine the fresh greens and other natural wares.

This simple crate brims with evergreens and glittery purple stems and balls.

 Don't stop with boxes. How about a hanging basket?

Or a simple swag?Sweet!

I'm inspired. The silly dog and I will be out gathering supplies. I think I can do something fun with that lingonberry we're growing.

Two reasons why we cage trees and shrubs

 1. This doe about to enter the yard.

 2. And this doe already in the vegetable garden, trying to snack on the remains inside the pepper house.

Both were midmorning visitors on Tuesday.

Winter ...

... has arrived in the form of 6 inches or so of heavy, wet snow.

Pattern play with the snow

Today's slow, heavy, wet snow was just right for focusing the eye on patterns absent in other seasons.

 

A few rose hips still cling to Rosa glauca in the herb garden.

Capped with fresh snow, bee balm zombies march toward nowhere.

The tree lilac cuts a lacy silhouette against the house.

Dealing with the cold

 A pina colada is garnished with fresh pineapple and maraschino cherries. If that doesn't jingle your bells, what will?

It's times like this -- when we're knee-deep in a cold spell -- that friends in warmer climes ask, "How do you stand it?" Here's one approach that seems to help:

First, get out the blender and make a batch of pina coladas. The flavors of pineapple and coconut immediately transport one to a place where it's summer all day every day. We follow the method outlined in "The Craft of the Cocktail" by Dale Degroff. Degroff says the trick to making a great pina colada is to use both light rum and dark rum, a dash of bitters and heavy cream. We agree.

With summer on my mind, it's a good time to check on some favorite tender plants wintering in the cool, dark closets under the stairs. My record on overwintering tuberous plants such as dahlias, begonias and chocolate cosmos is mixed, but I've done pretty well with waterlilies and brugmansias.

This is my first stab at saving Begonia boliviensis 'Bonfire'. The plant was too lovely to pass up last spring. I'm following Margaret Roach's advice at A Way to Garden -- I cut it back to nothing, left it in its pot and am leaving it dry until it start to shows some bit of growth (hopefully!) in the spring.

It's also my first try with these 'Black Beauty' dahlias. We grew them from seed last year and I'm experimenting with saving the tubers to see if I get flowers earlier.

Chocolate cosmos (Cosmos astrosanguineus) is a favorite and somewhat pricey plant. In the fall, I pulled the plants, cut off the foliage, shook off excess soil and am storing the tubers in a paper bag. So far, so good. I didn't notice any rotting flesh when I checked the bags.

Two closets and two brugmansias. I let the pots dry out and the foliage drop before cutting the plants back by a third to a half and plopping the pots into the dark. I hope they stay dormant until March/April before moving them back into the sun. I do check the soil occasionally throughout the winter and if it seems too dry, throw down a little water. But no soaking -- I don't want the roots to rot.

Waterlilies have become routine. They're hardy waterlilies, but I grow them in containers so they come in for the winter. I cut back all the foliage, double-bag the pots in plastic garbage bags and put them in the cool, dark closet. I give them a little water once or twice a winter. Peeking into the bags the other day, I could see they were already sprouting new growth, but that's OK. They'll be fine until spring.