Ah, January. The month for resolutions, new ideas, inspiration, and of course —planning for the year to come. For gardeners, it’s all that, plus seed catalogues, daydreaming of summer afternoons, and, if you’re like us, browsing Lee Valley Tools for the perfect bypass pruner. But we digress.
But truly, January is the planning month for gardeners, isn’t it? And given this first month of the year is named after Janus, mythology’s two-faced god of beginnings and endings, who looks both forwards and backwards, it’s appropriate to spend time looking back over the year that was, as we look toward the year to come, don’t you think?
If you’ve kept a garden journal (and well done you if you have), it’s time to take it out, if you’re not already poring over it, of course. We like to take stock of what worked for us last year and what didn’t, but we find it’s also a great way to get us into the gardening mood — especially as we look at photos of everything being so verdantly green in June, for example. Admittedly, getting into the gardening spirit can be tricky to do when the snow is swirling outside, and the temperatures are in the distinctly uninviting-to-be-outside zone, but mentally meandering around the blissful growing days of the previous year helps a lot, we’ve discovered.
As we doodle up our garden maps, and flip through seed catalogues, we’re spending some time thinking about some new plants to try this year. We’re also keeping in mind that we need to make an effort to keep ourselves from growing things that we didn’t make the best use of last season — no matter how tempting they are to grow for the pure satisfaction of, well, growing. Swiss chard comes to mind for us, does anything spring to mind for you? Anyway, this is one aspect of gardening that we’re trying to get better at this year, as we relish the fact that there’s always one more thing to get better at as gardeners, and there’s always something new to learn when we’re out there with our hands in the soil.
So how about you? Are you thinking of trying something new this year? Perhaps vertical gardening or container gardening? Some raised beds or a windowsill garden? We’d love to hear about what you’re thinking.
And in the meantime, thank goodness for our houseplants, stalwart indoor green friends that they are. We have to say that we’ve been enjoying catching up with your adventures in the Houseplants by gardenstead Facebook group — every day we learn something new from the amazing people who post about their plants, as well as from the folks who seem to always have the answers to some of the perplexing questions that arise.
Happy gardening, gardening friends!
