In honour of our first snowstorm of the season, some photos of winter in gardens past and present, and the offering of a long-time favourite poem by Wallace Stevens. (Click on thumbnails for larger photos or to run a slideshow.)
Maryland ‘garden,’ before fence or garden installed, 1991
Maryland garden, with fence and more plantings, March 1993
inland Maine garden, rain barrel and entryway garden with euonymus, 1996?
inland Maine garden, rhodos covered in snow, 2001
coastal Maine garden, Japanese lantern, Dec 2007
coastal Maine garden, garden mirrors on weepng cherry, Dec 2007
coastal Maine garden, hawthorn, Jan 2008
coastal Maine garden, spruce, Jan 2008
coastal Maine garden, ledge and trees, March 2008
coastal Maine garden, statuary combo, March 2008
coastal Maine garden, backyard in ice, Dec 2008
NH garden, rosemary, Nov 2010
NH garden, leaves in snow, Oct 2011
NH garden, Norway maple, Oct 2011
NH garden, Little King River birch, dogwood, euonymus, Oct 2011
NH garden, leucothoe in ice, Jan 2012
NH garden, dawrf Alberta spruce and Fine Line, Jan 2012
NH garden, Tina crabapple in ice, Jan 2012
NH garden, sedum in ice, Jan 2012
NH garden, Olga Mezitt rhodo in ice, Jan 2012
NH garden, Nishiki willow in ice, Jan 2012
NH garden, pieris japonica (Andromeda) and grasses in border, Feb 2012
NH garden, robin and apple, March 2012
NH garden, backyard with butterfly bush close, Dec 2012
NH garden, Olga Mezitt rhodo, Dec 2012
NH garden, penstemon, grasses, weeping spruce, Dec 2012
NH garden, Fine Line and dwarf Alberta spruce, Jan 2013
NH garden, echinacea, grasses, Feb 2013
NH garden, Little King River Birch and spruce, Feb 2013
NH garden, hosta leaves with dusting, Nov 2013
NH garden, bench, weeping spruce, Tina crabapple, back border, Dec 2013
NH garden, echinacea, Dec 2013
NH garden, white-throated sparrow with astilbe seed head, Dec 2013
NH garden, mourning dove, Dec 2013
NH garden, cockleburr, grasses in border, fence, Dec 2013
NH garden, American Tree Sparrow, Dec 2013
The Snow Man
by WALLACE STEVENS
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
