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