This month exposes the stark reality of the garden. The clutter, the weeds and the lack of structure in the garden. Amidst all of these, I found a couple of the hellebores blooming! I also noticed that one hellebore that I planted in the front yard is not there anymore. I never lost a hellebore before and so I am really surprised and at a loss for what could be the reason.
Just as my indoor space, I don’t like clutter in the garden at all. This month I can clearly see that I have accumulated a lot of pots, planters, and knickknacks in the garden. I am keeping a mental note of getting rid of these things as much as I can. The temperature is quite low for me to venture out too much these days – it might also be because I am not sure what to discard. While I enjoy the randomness of the cottage garden, I still like clean lines. This month I stepped into the garden after exactly two and half months and the first thing I noticed is that the garden is looking extremely unruly with the debris from last growing season. I have not done any fall cleanup last year. Over the years I learnt how some garden debris is beneficial for insects and worms. However I don’t like how the garden looks with all the dried leaves, and debris strewn around the garden. So I started cleaning up the garden this month.
During a quick walk around in the front yard I saw that the daffodils planted in the previous year’s are coming up. The muscari (grape hyacinths) and ranunculus (planted last year) have come up strongly as well. These got a little beaten up during the cold front that hit us mid January (lowest temperature where we are was 14F). I hope these recover and bloom. The plants that are still looking good apart from the boxwoods, camellia and cypress are the yucca, the potted lavender and surprisingly the Erysimum (Bowles Mauve). Some of the snapdragons are still standing tall. I love snapdragons so much!!
I am never satisfied with the amount of spring flowering bulbs I plant. I planted quite a few daffodils, muscari in the front yard and tulips in pots in October last year. Since I was away the last two months of last year, I asked a friend to buy me some discounted bulbs. I started the year with planting a few daffodils, crocuses and Iris Reticulata in pots on 1st January. At the same time, I also planted 4 purple sensation alliums in the front yard. Planting so late will be an experiment for me this year. Looking forward to seeing how the late planted bulbs do.
This is the fourth year since I started winter sowing. I grow at least a few plants this way each year. This year I sowed White Coneflower (sourced for the first time from Amazon) and Nigella seeds on 2024-01-09. The process is so simple and for the right seeds, the results have been great for me. If you want to know more about the process, check out the post I had written earlier.
January is a month when the itch to garden and see some color gets very real. And this is the time when a potted, forced flowering bulb display truly comes to the rescue. So of course I couldn’t resist the gorgeous pink hyacinth flowers from Trader Joe’s. I also bought myself a beautiful bi-colored African Violet which I was looking for.
January Garden Chore list that I checked off:
- Began the general garden clean up including grooming the Hellebore leaves.
- Weeding. Of course it will continue through out the year
- Winter sowed white coneflower and nigella on 1/9.
- Started tomatoes and broccoli seeds on 01/21. The tomato seeds already germinated on 01/28.
- Expanded the dahlia bed (yet again!) by ~1 foot. It is a no till bed with cardboards underneath. So it was a low effort job!
You can watch a short tour of my garden this month in the video below:
simple urban living 