Ear to the ground

I woke up this morning with five inches of snow on my car—not because I don’t have room in the garage, but because I forgot to put the car in the garage. It was warmish. I let my guard down.

One downside of living in a cold climate is that winter is so very long that we tend (or want) to see every string of warm days as a sign of spring. Warm winter days are not signs of spring. They’re just warm winter days. It will get cold again—brutally, sometimes—and it for certain will snow. Again. You should put your car in the garage.

But during those tiny thaws, when the snow melts away just for a little while, it’s a great pleasure to police the perimeter, isn’t it? Right before this latest snow dump I checked out my three precious cultivars of Cyclamen hederifolium, and each has spent the winter spreading into what, it is hoped, will eventually become giant mats. Under the snow! A few weeks ago, there was Corsican mint blooming (very sparsely). And last year wallflowers blossomed through the snow almost the whole winter.

These are some of the seemingly small pleasures we can take in winter. Here’s a big one, though—PLANTwny’s Plantasia Garden and Landscape Show is back on! If you love the smell of fresh mulch and spring bulbs—I sure do— there is no better place to be when the weather outside is frightful. Plantasia runs March 17–20 at the Fairgrounds in Hamburg.

This year there won’t be a GardenScape show at the Dome Center in Rochester. But PLANTgflx, our regional nursery and landscape association, will be taking part in the ROC Home & Garden Show put on by the Rochester Home Builders’ Association, and Upstate Gardeners Journal will be there, too! It’s at the Rochester Riverside Convention Center March 19 and 20.

I think I said this last year, and I don’t want to jinx it, but it does seem like people are starting to feel better about going out and about. Looking forward to seeing you all, in person, sooner rather than later.

As always, thanks for reading—