Preparing For A Long Winter's Rest

Hawthorn Hill, November 20, 2020

Winters in Florida is not the same as the ones I grew up with in Wisconsin. As a gardener, I'm always happy to be able to putter around my plants here, but I have to admit that there is something wonderful about taking a rest. That's what wintertime is, after all. It's a time for us to catch our breath and a time to evaluate where things stand. To a great extent, that's even true here in my new Pasco County home.

Most of my plants are done growing for the year and, although a few are yet to bloom, most are starting to lose their leaves and/or are going to seed. With that, comes planting and planting for a new season brings me great joy. No longer are the weeds trying to stay ahead of me and the attention I have to give to watering the plants in my flats is significantly reduced. Except for collecting and planting seed, I have very little to do right now and that is fine with me.  I don't consider myself to be a lazy man, but there is something to be said for reduced workloads and time for contemplation. 

In my opinion, we spend far too little time in contemplation and far too much in frenetic activity. As winter approaches and I've finished sowing seed from this year's wildflowers, I'll have the time I need to simply think. We need to value that more. I cherish the fact that my native landscape, even here in west-central Florida, rests with me. I have never understood those who would landscape with tropicals that never really rest and who mow their turf grass lawns even when it isn't needed.  Those tropicals and turf may give us something to do, but those are activities that are really pointless. I'd rather have my quiet time. When you think about it, most of nature takes a break in the winter and it's rejuvenating. When life bursts forth again the spring, it is a celebration. My neighbors miss that with their landscapes that don't change with the seasons and rest in the winter.

I've been planting seeds now for next spring. That is the way that nature does it also. Seeds mature and they fall to the ground - or they're whisked away on a late-fall air current.  They do not get collected by Mother Nature and tucked inside an envelope until warmer weather returns in spring. In my home state of Wisconsin, theses seeds would lie dormant through the freezing winter temperatures, but here in my part of Florida, those freezes just don't happen with seasonal regularity. Seeds here fall to the ground and germinate. They might encounter a slight freeze when they do, but they are adapted to it. Over my many years of growing native wildflowers from seed, I have never lost a seedling to a freeze. The parents might suffer, but the seedlings take it with little to no damage. That's what hundreds of years of evolution has shaped. 

With my seeds sown and my adult plants dormant, I can enjoy the holidays, a good book, and an occasional adult beverage. Cherish the winter months as life will get hectic again soon enough.


Seedling Arnoglossums


Comments

  1. Bright ChildNovember 21, 2020 at 9:28 PM

    This is my first garden in Florida. In Minnesota I left stalks and stems and leaves. Here I see partridge peas springing up from those I planted in February. Other plants are going to seed, but here a shy late black-eyed Susan has finally bloomed. I’m anticipating what else my garden will surprise me with left to itself.

    ReplyDelete
  2. YvonneNovember 22, 2020 at 8:32 AM

    Amen, dear man.

    ReplyDelete

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