I feel as if we may have broken into spring. The four days and night above freezing have laid the packed ice bare and if it weren't so bumpy we could skate. But it has also started to leave the grass around the tree on the west side of my house bare and in another day or two most of it may be gone. It is only mid-January and I know this is only the January thaw and that before winter is over we will have several more storms. But the last few warmer days are a relief from the cold and wind of the storm. Before long spring will be here and I can start my regular garden care.

I can’t find the Hellebore above (Helleborus niger) that was blooming before the storm hit in mid-December, and I expect by now that it is fairly flat, crushed under the weight of a succession of snow storms, and wind piling a drift onto that corner below the deck. (I am occasionally lucky with the snow -- the wind blows in just the right direction and I only have to shovel the deck and steps off -- everything else is blown clear.) In mid-December it was just starting to bloom and blossoms would have been visible until late March, or even through April. This plant is a division of a plant in the garden of a friend and client, Doris Olafson. She also insisted I take as many (seedlings) as I wanted of a spring-blooming green Hellebore. Doris died three years ago but these parts of her garden live on in mine.

Helleborus niger after the storm-- I know it is under there someplace. The storm and birds -- I've almost decided bird feeders are too messy, and they attract cats have conspired to hide it. The other Hellebore plants I have are still above the snow and green. Most will bloom in the spring, starting in April, the other, H. foetidissima won't bloom until late summer. In the meantime I'm hoping some more snow will cover up this mess, and spring will help to absorb everything into a layer of compost among the plants in this spot.

And now it is winter, or so the weather reporters tell me. My Seattle sister missed Christmas in Montana, spending it in the snow and ice of the west coast. She did make it a week later for New Year’s Eve so apparently there is some truth on television.

Winter is not my favorite season for the usually cited reasons: it is too cold, too dark, too long, too many other things that make life difficult. But it is for me, like the plants and gardens I take care of, a time for rest and renewal, my own little dormancy period if you will. It is the time I use to finish household projects (this year it is finishing the trim around the new vinyl windows I have been gradually replacing the old aluminum frame windows with); it is the time I catch up on my reading and examination of the many magazines and catalogues that have accumulated since last spring on my living room floor and look for their new ideas, new information and notices about new plants and cultivation techniques; and it is the time I use to prepare and plan new ideas for the gardens I care for.

This is my first time at blogging, although I have several friends and family members who maintain regular blogs so I read their blogs and some others on a fairly regular basis. I know that familiarity with a medium is not the same thing as creating in that medium, but I'm also not completely clueless. It seems an ideal way for a young family at a distance to keep their parents in touch with growing children and their doings. And it seems a reasonable way for me to keep my gardening friends and clients aware of what is going on in my garden (such as it is), in their own gardens and in the other gardens I care for – sort of a cyber version of the GardenCare Garden Tour I have talked about the last three years.

This first picture is of onion flowers gone to seed in my dad's garden in Great Falls.

See you next time. Nick