Winter Gardening Tips to Inspire Your Garden Designs; Green Cocktails and Gardens in Movies!

Making a pivot from my last post and its references to ballet and performance art, I thought I’d “pivot” or jeté back to the garden. Puns intended (smile).

Mac Griswold famously said, “Gardening is the slowest of the performing arts.” 

Mother Nature indeed knows how to choreograph a spectacular show: the colors, the texture, the orchestrated tempo of blooming flowers and blossoms, the dance of myriad pollinators ~ all coordinate to create a spectacular, heart-stopping show. And one of the best parts? The show changes every day! There’s no playbill noting intermissions or understudy.  The show must go on… 

Yet, let’s not forget that a garden is a planned space. I always tell my garden clients that every good garden design tells a story… When creating your garden oasis and telling your story, you need to start with a master plan to reimagine (if you’re just starting out) or to enhance your space (if you’ve already got a cultivated garden). What to do at this time of year if your garden views are white with snow or winter fog? 

Here are some tips to get your garden ready for the spring. Plus a list of movies that feature inspiring gardens, and a garden-to-glass cocktail that is sure to stimulate your green garden fantasies… 

So, you want to sow seeds? 

Growing plants from seed – especially native, seasonal produce, flowers and herbs -- is essential to our food supply. 

Think of seeds as the “Warriors” or “First Responders” in our battle to retain taste and diversity and local cuisine.

Any gardener worth their salt, er seed, delights in growing some edible basics, including tomatoes or cucumbers or zucchini or peppers.

But it’s just as easy and fun and delicious to grow a very wide variety of fruits, herbs, vegetables, and edible flowers. 

Frankly – if you are going to grow your own -- why limit yourself with the ordinary?

There is a vast, thrilling, visually enthralling and unlimited supply of deliciously, unique plants just waiting, beckoning to be tried.

Like a fashion “Lookbook,” you will be giddy with anticipation, merely turning the seed catalog pages.  Here are a few I think you’ll fall in love with: 

Borage  

Love in a Mist 

Celosia Argentea 

Horehound, Lamiaceae

Kiss Me Over the Garden Gate 

Seed Sources

Seed and bulb sources are a cornucopia of garden information.  Plus they give it away, free.  Take advantage of that expertise.  The seed companies we use earn our loyalty by providing outstanding, quality products, along with unbridled, solid growing tips and tricks.  On each seed packet there is an abundance of planting and growing information. How easy is that?

At our Garden State farm-ette, my husband Bill and I grow a variety of vegetables, herbs, and fruits.  Some of our favorite, tested, seed and bulb resources include:

Kitazawa Seed Co.  

I love Kitazawa and their Asian vegetables. The seeds possess outstanding integrity and provenance. We enjoy great success with their shishito peppers, and luscious, lipstick-red watermelon radish and eggplants – that produced purple beauties right through fall -- along with bok choy, that we would’ve savored even more if that rotten groundhog/woodchuck hadn’t also enjoyed the bounty!

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds – more than 1400 heirloom seeds.  If you can’t find something here to tickle your carrots, click off!

Maine Potato Lady – for their garlic and potatoes 

John Scheepers Garden Seeds – for their eggplants, especially the Black Opal  and Turkish Orange and… Their seed packets with the Bobbi Angell botanical art is a thing of beauty itself. What a lovely gift for your gardener friends and you.  Scheepers is also a terrific couce for bulbs as is Brent and Becky’s Bulbs.

I can’t wait to plant my ranunculus.  I sourced from Scheepers and Brecks.

  I soooo adore these delicate beauties. In colder planting zones ~ generally six on up ~ you order in the autumn, overwinter in a cool, dry place and plant after fear of frost at night. Can’t wait. 

  

Don’t know what zone you are?  Check the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map

Winter Garden Tasks

It’s a perfect time to view the “bones” of the garden. Take a look around, be hyper observant now that you’re not distracted by all the flowers. What are the architectural features? Are there good-looking local stones or boulders in place to add to the natural look? Consider garden statues, fountains or elevations to add all-year interest. I love grade changes with steps, walls. 

Too often I see folks that have some evergreens, overgrown foundation plants and then, blank spaces. Too many annuals that are terrific as pops of color in summer but not the best investment in terms of the overall look of the garden. 

At this time, you can create a bubble diagram that details the spaces you want to create or modify, such as the cutting garden, the lawn, the bocce court.  

I name the garden “rooms” for me and my clients’ spaces, including the aforementioned “farm-ette,” or the “Blueberry Garden,” the “Water Garden,” the “English Garden,” the “Love Garden,” the “Zoo Garden,” and so on. I like the way it gives character and voice to the garden story. Not to mention it makes it easier to reference for clients and my garden team. 

from Papergardenworkshop

from Concept Draw

You can also use the winter season for dreaming of what colors you’ll want to see in your garden. Does your taste run hot or to the cool side of the color wheel?  

I like to mix the opposites on the wheel. For example, purple and yellow or orange make a superlative Mediterranean garden look.

Keeping Records

Start a garden journal if you don’t have one already. Keep a record of your garden plants and wish-lists, bubble diagrams, seed-start times under the grow lights, garden art, observations and more.

You can also take this time to explore garden tech Apps that you’ll put to good use year-round. I use PictureThis most often. GrowIt, PlantApp , PlantNet , Plant Disease Identifier are all very good apps too, that I use to varying degrees.  Nothing beats the ability to get immediate answers to learn what plant you are looking at or what’s eating your favorite roses, for example… 

Gardens in Cinema

Speaking of performance art: An altogether fun suggestion for winter garden dreaming is to watch some inspiring garden movies. 

Pour yourself a minty green drink ~ the Verdant Green Jangala from my Art of the Garnish book is perfect to sit back and enjoy while viewing how gardens play a major, starring role in the cinematic arts.   

The cocktail is a remix on a jungle-green Grasshopper that’s refreshingly minty (you can grow fresh mint all year long indoors), and as bewitching and beguiling as nature’s world of plants. Oh, and Jangala is Sanskrit for jungle. A nod to the green of the drink and its link to the world of plants. 

Ingredients

1 jigger green creme de menthe 

1 jigger white creme de cocoa or white chocolate syrup - homemade is best

1 jigger milk (or cream, or cream of coconut)

3-5 shakes of Fee Brothers chocolate bitters 

Method

Mix all in shaker - with ice

Pour into ornamental stemmed cordial, liqueur or sherry glasses, straight up.  

Garnish

Key lime basket brimming with pomegranate pieces. Or a few mint leaves that you’ve spanked! Or an edible violet… 

Here’s a few films to get your green thumbs twirling and your heart aflutter:

The Secret Garden ~ The original and the remake

It’s Complicated (with Meryl Streep as a bonus)

Frank Cabot's The Gardener (available on multiple platforms ~ see the Garden Conservancy for full listing)

Edward Scissorhands ~ oh that pruning… 

The Great Gatsby ~ ahhhh, one of my favorites. “In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars.” 

Call Me by Your Name ~ Italian garden beauty

Atonement ~ lovely British flower gardens

Little Women and Pride and Prejudice ~ see above ~ more British garden style 

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon ~ Wonderful Asian gardens. Plus, it’s the year of the Tiger. 

Enjoy the glamor of the garden in the performing arts; the glamor of the gardens in the visual arts.  Gardens are a magical inspiration… And an enduring beautiful art form that you can direct.