A January Assessment

January. It's that month. The holidays are over. Winter has a firm grasp on the land. Technically winter has been here for a few weeks now, but we didn't notice it under the twinkling lights and glistening tinsel. Strip away the veneer of the holidays and the great outdoors are left with brown.

Heck, even some of my houseplants are feeling the cold effects of winter:

Somewhere underneath that Spanish moss is the carcass of a dead, dead plant... 

Actually, no. That pot of deadness above was once the genesis of my houseplant collection: an orchid, Phalaenopsis 'Sogo Lisa'. It was ten years old. How do you kill a ten-year old orchid? What horrible depths of neglect did I inflict upon this poor plant that I murdered it just as it celebrated its first decade of being? And this wasn't even one of those fancy-pants, expensive, hard-to-grow orchids. It's a moth orchid, number one on the list of Top-Ten Easy Orchids.

That makes me feel bad.

But not as bad as this: Do you see this pot?

Whatever it was, it's dead now.

That used to be a plant. I think. Or maybe it was just an empty pot of dirt kept on the windowsill for some "earth tones". Far more likely, it was a horticultural experiment gone wrong.

Wow. Seeing these failed houseplants is making me feel bad. Lets focus our attention outside.

During the growing season I could enjoy a healthy and vigorous Clematis growing on a homemade bamboo trellis just steps from my front door.

Pretty. Interesting. Pretty interesting.

It should have some rudimentary winter interest, right? 

Nope. No interest here. Just sadness.

Oh yeah. The trellis broke. That's on my list of things to fix before spring gets here.

When I said that everything outside was brown, I wasn't including my flower beds. Those still have plenty of green:

The wrong kind of green, eh?

Yeah that's a nice carpet of chickweed, bittercress, oxalis and some wild onion thrown in for good measure. 2014: the year when I finally get some mulch delivered. 

It's Not All Gloom and Doom!

Even through the brown reminders of things gone wrong, January still offers many promising sights:

My Japanese maple still retains grace and a certain beauty, even though most of its leaves have gone. The cascading winter form is a reminder of the wavy red foliage to come. 

Spring bulbs, though seemingly forgotten, are unfazed by frigid temperatures and march ever boldly towards their spring rendezvous with beauty. The Hyacinths were the first to see daylight:

Please ignore the thriving bittercress and chickweed... I already addressed the need for more mulch. 

Second to get in line for the spring bloom-a-thon are the dwarf Daffodils:

I think I made a good call, spreading a dozen or so clusters of these through my front flower beds. It should be quite a pretty show in another month or so! 

So what can you do in your garden in January? A fair amount; just not necessarily outdoors. I'll use the rest of the month to do some planning for the spring. Thinking about what plants I want to divide, what needs to be moved, and what needs to go away. Looking for soggy areas and plotting out new drains. This weekend I'm going to be surfing Pinterest and looking for trellis designs for my Clematis. Happy planning!