Beauty Now Unseen-My Garden

Now in the middle of winter as my garden lies dormant, I am going through the images I have taken during the summer so I can make photo cards for friends, clients, and business associates; since it has been cold and grey out lately, at least in the mornings, I want to remind us of what is locked away in the seemingly dead branches of plants, and what lies under the ground within tiny seeds and ugly bulbs, just waiting for the warmth of Spring to bring out their beauty.

This Clematis grows up the side of my workshop; now if you looked for the plant, you would see only a greyish brown stick poking up about 6" tall, against the lattice; seeing this photo reminds me to fertilize and care for that stick because it is full of purple flowers and climbing tendrils, which I cannot
yet see.

On New Year's Day I pruned and tied back the gnarled and bare branches of the climbing rose bushes from which I cut the blooms for this bouquet in May of last year. The small flowers mixed in this arrangement were picked from below the roses, where I have planted the seeds of Forget-me-Nots and Feverfew, which are just beginning to push up from the soil to be ready for the warmth of Spring. For my gardener friends, the the roses in this bouquet are: Climbing Royal Sunset, Summer Wine, and Polka.

My Hydrangea plants now look bare and mostly dead, as if there could never be any life coming out of their branches; but with some good pruning, fertilizer and water, by June, I will have these lush blooms positioned on my front porch steps to welcome my guests and family members.


For both for its lush peony-like shape and the incredibly sweet aroma, this is one of my favorite roses, The Evelyn (a David Austin Rose). I have two of these healthy plants growing on my deck so that I can smell them whenever I walk in my back door. Crabtree and Evelyn requested that David Austin create a rose with the fragrance of their perfume, and he did! If you look in the Crabtree and Evelyn products list, you will find the story behind the Evelyn Rose.

I have been listening to "The Rose" a lot over the the Christmas break. The last verse always makes me think of my garden in the winter:

Just remember in the winter

Far beneath the bitter snow

Lies the seed

That with the sun's love, in the spring

Becomes the rose

If you have not heard "The Rose" sung by Bette Midler, or would like to hear it again, please join me in enjoying this song of hope and beauty.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQYT_5IRdSM&feature=related