You write like a poet------when is your book coming out?

Florence

To my Floridian heart and soul, winter comes like a dirge and has had no "great benefits" that I allow to creep into my one-sided perspective, but your words are persuasive and even joyful, Suzy. There must be great benefits here, too, besides the cessation of sweat. I'll think about this and get back to you, but I'll have to ignore the 6 o'clock pitch-blackness in order to be truly unbiased. Maybe when my garden becomes the jungle it portends, I'll appreciate being able "to walk anywhere in the garden without pushing stuff out of my way or ducking underneath". Whoa! No I won't! No dormancy! Sheesh, seeing your side of winter is going to be difficult.

Sherry

I really can see for miles(I can see the local town from my backdoor, 6 miles away, and wish I could get anything to grow as lushly as you describe. Forever I've wanted my own private hidey hole and plant all kinds of stuff- it keeps being sticks with a couple leaves on top for ten years.
Don't know what the answer is. Lately I've taken to beating up deer. I charge out there with a broom to KILL THEM.
"You @#&*! I'll blow your cotton tails off!"
This is a new thing for them. "What, lady? You've always shared your tasty roses so nicely." They stare, like huh, who me?, before running to the far corner of Devil Woman's yard.
They huddle at the far end of Devil Woman's yard, thinking, "We know nothing dares move in Devil Woman's yard." I have never seen a deer in Devil Woman's yard. Now there are two of us.

Actually I have begun to miss winter.

It didn't happen until I stopped working and no longer had to worry about driving on dangerous icy roads. But here in California we gardeners never take that pause that refreshes. Our climate does bring many wonderful rewards to the gardener. Still there is something incredibly wonderful about sitting in front of the fire with the seed catalogs spread out, drinking the beverage of your choice while the snowy winds blow outside, all the while knowing that no sane person expects you to be working in your garden at this time of the year.

Rosefolly, remembering

Right now we're coming to the end of one of my favorite times of year, the period when the leaves color and fall. Our view from the kitchen window is of the wisteria pergola that covers the from of the house and of the persimmon. The persimmon, oddly, didn't color well this year, but as usual it's hung with a heavy crop of little orange pumpkins, and the wisteria is its usual luminous yellow. Beneath the persimmon the hellebores are growing strongly, the hardy inch plant is still rambling around amongst the leaves, and the marbled foliage of the Neapolitan cyclamen, studded with the last flowers, is continuing its slow expansion. Spikes of the snake's head iris are pushing up through the leaves.
We've hardly had any sun this month, just a steady succession of clouds, rain, and fog. Now the evergreens come into their own: box, sarcococca, bay, yew, pittosporum, looking elegant and Japanese in the mist. So does the nandina with its clusters of red fruit, and the Danae racemosa, which may in time grow into the short hedge I was dreaming of when I planted it.
I appreciate the leaves not only for their beauty, but even more for their eventual transformation into compost. Every year the leaves cover the ground and I feel rich. As Suzy said, this is the start of cleanup time, and I've been cutting off the dead foliage of the peonies and pulling the perilla. More future compost, and the garden is regaining form after the summer bacchanalia.
Perhaps the best thing about this time of year is that I no longer have to confront the reality of the garden I have, but have room to dream about the garden that will be. I can forget about rose cane girdler, canker, bindweed, heat and drought. I can look forward to the growth of the young oak that we bought two years ago and that has been regrowing its roots since. I can believe that the shrubs will dig in and begin to shade out the Bermuda grass, and on hot days shade me the gardener as well. The Teas will finally recover from last winter and begin growing again. The ground will show signs of being fertile and manageable. The new plants acquired during the course of the year will unfurl their fascinating characters. Everything will be taller, thicker, lusher.
Really, Thanksgiving is very appropriate for this time of year.
Melissa

oh, Melissa, what a vivid picture you conjure up, I love reading your garden reports.Dealing with challenges makes us much better gardeners and, as there is so much deferred pleasure, we learn patience, even though we are yearning for that numinous moment of transcendence, when everything comes together and we can feel the deep rhythms of life in our hands, feet and hearts. Hope and optimism always see us through the darkest winters.
Rosefolly, reading your post made me realise how thoroughly against 'winter gardens' I am. This trend seems to be increasing in the UK - you know, lets plant some dogwoods and black grasses, maybe Himalayan birches and snowdrops, then we can admire the low winter sun hitting the exposed branches. Well, sod that! This seems to me to be yet another attempt to have it all. No, I want a break in the winter. I am fed up with the endless watering, bored with heaps of leaves and absolutely just want to curl up with next years catalogues. Oh yeah, there is housework aplenty, since cleaning inside has been avoided for about 8 months and we now live in a tip. I need a rest, the plants need a rest, the soil needs a rest and my family certainly need a rest (if only to remember that I am the matriarch, not just some grime encrusted labourer, seen from a distance.
Sherry, we get what we can from our gardens. Have you ever visited the far north forum? Now that bunch really ARE heroic and truly represent the real spirit of gardeners in their indomitable can-do attitudes (Of course, not all northerners have my admiration, let me risk tainting our wonderful forum with the words Sarah Palin!!!) We, in the UK are literally gobsmacked, even though we have our own slimy bunch of public schoolboys to deal with.

Kaylah - LOL!

I agree with the winter garden thing being over-rated. We have the red stemmed dogwood, crabapples, arborvitae, etc., but the real beauty in winter is the snow and the effects it creates. I'll have to take some pictures this winter.

By the way, congratulations on your Prince William's engagement. I teared up when I saw the ring.

prince who?
staunch republicans (not the US meaning) in this household but thanks, anyway, K.
Kaylah, perhaps something more lethal than a broom (I wave one of them at my offspring!) Kalashnikov? Socking great catapult at the very least.

In the days leading up to the first rains in October I find myself winding up into a feeling of near desperation. I will have been watering a very large garden for nearly 5 months of bone dry California summer. We had a heat spell the beginning of October, the hottest temps of the year. Then it ended overnight. I very much need the restfulness that this time of year brings. I let it go and mostly just enjoy the garden until pruning begins in earnest.
I can quite literally see for many miles here, ridge after misty ridge on out to the coast. Right now without my nose to the grindstone I feel like I'm really seeing it for the first time in months.

I love winter too, but what I love most about it here in Crete, is that it is so short!!!
About mid December it should become chilly, and that will last until the end of February.
Lots of days re-reading my favourite gardening books beside the log fire. Evenings playing Scrabble with our neighbours.
Snow on all the mountain tops around me, and, plenty of rain I hope on my garden.

In England every winter seemed to go on forever, and then when summer did come, too many days of howling wind, rain or, those days on end, with heavy cloud cover that made me feel as though I was imprisoned in a grey room with the ceiling getting lower and lower.

I have been planting more herbaceous plants to-day and tying in Marechal Niel to the arbour. My muscles really ached after that, so I had a lovely hot, deep, bubbly bath and then sat out in the garden with just a towel round me in the late afternoon sunshine. I was watching some butterflies dancing around Duchess de Brabant which has budded up yet again. Clematis Perle d'Azur is flowering through the pink flowers of Colombian Climber. Archduke Charles is full of flowers. The alstromerias think it is still summer, and the jasmine is full of perfume.
I could never go back to those interminable winters. This is paradise!!
Daisy

We have winter here sorta kinda but there's never a respite for the gardener. We've yet to have our first frost so fall clean-up is still to happen. Then there are the winter weeds -- I've got a bumper crop of henbit and cherry laurel seedlings that will take me through December to eradicate. January is taken up with planting tulips (annuals here) and fussing with the camellias. I usually start pruning some roses then even though we're supposed to wait until Valentine's Day. But with any luck at all, by then we'll have an early spring and be dancing through the daffodils.

Sherry, I would think the cessation of sweat would be a great boon. I used to live in South Carolina and the humidity could be quite oppressive. Also, aren't there far less mosquitoes in winter? ;)

I like the sort of quiet sadness of winter. You can cuddle up with a book and turn on a fire, even here in ridiculous southern california, it is just BARELY cool enough to feel like winter (not yet, but it will be, I can feel it coming...) You can put on fuzzy socks and slippers.

I really adore jackets and coats, in particular, leather coats. I can only wear them for a very small part of the year here. I look forward to them like I look forward to spring. ;) I also have a stupid collection of fluffy scarves that only see the light of day for a bout a month.

Whoever planned the development we are in chose their trees well and we're actually getting some fall color here. There are some pyracanthus around, too.

All of this has me considering having some architectural evergreens. I saw the cutest christmastree shaped rosemary at the nursery the other day and I adore how rosemary smells. That might be just the thing for me... I want some triangle or spike shaped medium-ish poinky evergreens. I don't really have much of that in my yard and I need a little more structure.... or perhaps something with some fall/winter berries. :)

And sometimes, here, in the thin slightly hilly air, we get a frost of ice on the sidewalk. OOOOOOOO.

And also... this will mark the end of my first year truly gardening, so I'm looking forward to winter because that means that spring will come soon,... and I'm really really hoping that my roses will get a lot bigger next year. That somehow just it being technically the second year will mean that they will get big like a light switch flipping on. haha.

you guys joking about "prince... who?" has me thinking of this comedy sketch where supposedly Prince (the musical artist) got on a bus and went up to this woman and said "Do you know who Prince is?" ;D

Melissa said: "Perhaps the best thing about this time of year is that I no longer have to confront the reality of the garden I have, but have room to dream about the garden that will be." That's what I was thinking, but she said it perfectly. I love looking out at the evergreens during the winter and planning and dreaming of my own little fantasy garden where roses are the queen, companion plants complement perfectly, and no weeds would dare to inhabit.

I should be doing the fall chores. But I hate cold weather, and glimpses from the window, where I can see the camellias blooming, allow me to pretend that my dream garden may one day become a reality. In the spring, when the weather warms up, I will go back to reality, work, chores, and sweat. And even though I may never achieve the perfect garden, I will have the vision for the winter, and the in spring the garden I do have will bring delight with each and every rose bloom.

sitting in a towel! Now that is quite unnecessary boasting.

I know. But I just couldn't resist it!
Daisy

Quite a picture, Daisy. :))

You're right, Aimeekitty. It is a great boon, but I haven't been able to be out in the garden as much the last few weeks so the impact was lost. The sun is still hot, but the shade is cool, and I had a very pleasant weekend in the yard. Really and truly, we don't have many mosquitos. We get no-see-ums (gnats) occasionally that will drive you nuts buzzing around your ears, and a couple of years ago we had a huge investation of mosquitos in the county. I felt like I was on The African Queen. They'd bite through your clothes!! It was very scary because we had had that equine virus in the area, so going outside for a while was like risking your life. But that was only once in over 30 years that I'd ever seen them like that. If you're careful to dump out any collecting water, mosquitos aren't a problem. This county has very few bodies of water and none near me. Maybe that's why.

It's the early darkness that I dislike most about winter. The evenings are so nice usually, but you can't do anything in the dark. Bummer! And I don't have a fireplace. In winter we wear layers of sweats, and I sometimes have on multiple pairs of socks and sock slippers. Don't like the cold, i.e., below 65.

Sherry

Yes, defoliating is lovely, now I can replant stuff! :D

It is amazing though what you can find out in a gardening forum, for example that random royalty is having a marriage lol. Ain't the prettiest lad (in fact remind me one of the Dutch horse riders, which is reputed to look more like a horse than her horse), but of well, prolly all the shinies are worth it. x)

Now when I did my yearly does of high society gossip, off to pot my new precious roses. :D

prettiness is not a prerequisite for the upper classes - as long as they are rich and thick......and truly, our royals are thick as fudge. P.Charlie means well but ought to stick to the organic veg and hostas and lay off the architectural crtiticism since he knows nought about it.

Sherry, yes, the few times I've been in florida it's been near water, so.. you know, and I'm very allergic to mosquitoes and for some reason they LOVE me, so. *hand to forehead*. In South Carolina, I lived in Charleston which has a ton of marshes, so you do the math. I certainly don't miss that with my move to California.

I'm going to go sit on my sofa with a fire and a bit of tea and sew ribbons. it's 51 degrees, which is quite cold for my thin blood.

I also can see for miles, without benefit of falling leaves, but we do have winters; they're just different from yours. It's 54 degrees now around noon and the sky is overcast. The bad part is that the rain has made everything green up which is beautiful but in essence means WEEDS. On this property you could weed forever and never get done (so you wait for summer and get out the weed whacker) but I try to pluck out the ones around the roses and throw them underneath on top of the mulch and call it compost. Quite a few of the trees actually do drop their leaves and that definitely gives me the feel of winter. I love seeing the beautiful skeletons of trees. The liquidambars that are abundant here turn beautiful fall colors before dropping so you also have the feeling of fall. At 2000 feet it gets colder here than other nearby areas and I do scrape the ice off my windshield some mornings before I go to work in January and February. Like Sherry I most hate the early dark. Right now by 5:15 p.m. the light is gone. I have to race around the garden for a few minutes after I get home to see what's going on before I've even changed my clothes.

The change of seasons is more subtle here, but it does exist. If I want snow I can drive up into the mountains nearby and then go home after I've tired of it. I don't want to boast, but to me it's the best of all worlds.

Ingrid

I can see for miles at this time of the year. Sometimes, just after a front comes through in summer, the humidity will be low enough to allow a day's glimpse of the Smoky Mountains, but winter here means drier air. We have the delight of seeing snow on the mountains for months before we get it here. And the mountains have such wonderful late afternoon shadows so that some of the foothills stand out when the rest of the time they are just part of the blue.
My roses still bloom. And the blooms last and last and last. Some of the chinas are especially gutsy, acting as if they'll bloom up to Christmas. Miss Lowe's single red glows like a ruby and Old Blush may manage to have bloomed ten out of the twelve months of this year. The (not tea) Noisettes continue to chug along with enough blooms to remind me that they really are part China.
Safranos are in their third fall bloom cycle; how I wish some of their late fall hips could hold on because the Daddy Pollen that's available now would make intersting offspring.

One thing about being on the top of a hill. I don't have leaves to rake. Each cold front that blusters through gives enough winds to move my leaves off the hill top and into the hollows in all four directions. The deer don't come to the top of our hill. They do work the lower gardens and come into the back orchard. But centuries of hunters on this hill top and centuries of accumulated worked stones for working deer hides may have erected "stay away" imprints in all but the densest of deer brains.

The predators are out too. Big raptors enjoying the critters that live in the grasses now that the grasses are beaten down by fall rains.

The best nursery in town has some huge Camellias in bloom and I am in lust for a camellia that is winter hardy. So now it's time to make a home for a camellia if I can find a spot with the right soil and drainage. Or maybe more than one spot.

Ingrid, I went out tonight after dark with a flashlight! I need a wider beam - maybe some klieg lights.

Sherry

13 for a low tonight and 2 below for tomorrow night. I'm guessing Sherry doesn't have much for heat with the layers of sweats and all. I keep the house at 69 then pull up a ten dollar electric heater by my feet.
The Thanksgiving snowstorm is on, regular as rain!? A foot predicted but I don't think it's going to do it.
Ann, it must be nice to still have roses. I planted Baltimore Belle from his pot into the ground in September and it rewarded me by blooming one tiny precious blossom. The wind is blowing raw tonight and I'm happy it's the weekend and I don't have to drive.
I just finished reading Sailing Alone Around The World by Joshua Slocum. I had a great time traveling to all those islands. I had never heard of this book but happened to read an excerpt somewhere and thought this guy could really write. Not to mention sailing alone around the world in his clipper in 1893.
I know you keep a boat, Ann, so thought I'd mention it. You can read it at Project Gutenberg. I got it from Amazon used books.
I've got another giant turkey to cook, as usual. I was wishing I was rich tonight. The local food bank has requests for Thanksgiving food boxes from 1200 families and only 180 turkeys. I heard somebody went to the store and spent a thousand dollars and took it over. I'll take them a turkey, but it does seem like a drop in the bucket in today's brave new world.

Exactly right, Kaylah: "brave new world" it is.
My sister brilliantly described fall as the time of year when you can pull the weeds faster than they can grow. Makes a gardener feel good. What I call the dark time of year, which begins about now and lasts until around the end of January, is hard to live with, but most years there are spells of mild weather during this period, and I can get out and work. I plant and weed and move things around and generally get the garden in order: this goes on until Christmas vacation. Once the holidays are over I give myself permission to prune the roses, a pleasant chance to socialize with my babies and have long confidential conversations with them. I continue weeding, seeing everything looking better and better, and dreaming about how great the plants will be in spring. Winter is never easy here, but I like my family, I like my house, I like to read, and we're well supplied with DVDs as well as with books. The cats are cozy, and of course there's the wood stove. And spring will come.
Melissa