Winter Blues

When it's too cold to go outside, and nothing's really doing anything out there anyway, I have to come up with creative ways to garden. It's the middle of winter in northwest Ohio and I need to get my hands dirty. What's a person to do?

I can...

• Winter sow some seeds
• Browse the seed and plant catalogs
• Re-pot house plants that need it
• Visit a botanical conservatory
• Take virtual tours online of other gardens
• Fertilize the house plants and trim dead and yellowed foliage away
  
• Visit the forums at Dave's Garden
• Read a gardening book

That's a start. And while it temporarily satisfies my craving, sometimes these things leave me wanting, more than ever. Gardening can become an obsession. (No kidding.) I thought maybe this winter would be different than last. Last year I thought I would go insane before spring got here. Gardening was still fairly new to me, and when the weather forced me to stop, I was like a young girl suddenly separated from her lover. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, don't they say?

Romie has to go to Van Wert every week to get his allergy injections and I go along. After he's finished, we go to Walmart to pick up food and litter for the cats and any groceries we might need. Though their garden section leaves much to be desired, especially in the dead of winter, it's something and something is better than nothing. Even the most common houseplants look enticing, and invariably I leave with one.

I can rationalize with the best of them.


"I've never seen one like that before. I'd better buy it, because I don't know if I'll ever come across one like that anytime soon. And it's so healthy!"
I'd snatch it up quickly, because surely someone else was waiting right around the corner to do the same.

"Did you know that plants are actually good for the air? They remove toxins and ... oh LOOK at this Peace Lily and it's only three dollars!!"
Now what person with allergies is going to argue with that? And it was cheap.

"The fern in the kitchen window doesn't look so good, you know. How about if we replace it with this ivy? If the fern makes a recovery, then we'll have both of them!"
And well, if the fern dies, the window won't have to look bare for even a minute. Okay, that's a stretch, and got me an eye-roll from Romie. (And a new ivy.)

"Isn't the bloom on that mum just gorgeous? We can get it and it will brighten our days now, and then in the spring we can plant it in the ground. We'll have it forever."
Indoor-outdoor plants. What a novel idea.



Only 51 days till spring...