
It snowed again last night. It began in late afternoon and snowed off and on through the night, finishing as the sun rose this morning. It is clinging to the leaves of evergreens and still balancing elegantly on bare branches despite the gusty winds and bright sunshine this morning. It is one of those days when the high temperature for the day was clocked before sunrise. I’m listening to the wind roar from the northwest as I type.
This has been an unusually cold winter for us in coastal Virginia. Actually, I believe it has been an unusually cold winter for most everyone in the central and eastern US these past few weeks. In our community, neighbors have have been chipping away at ice to make a path up to the mailbox and hoping to be able to drive safely out of the neighborhood. School was closed for a week.

That is all to say that there isn’t much gardening going on here at the moment, unless you count watering houseplants. I have turned instead to digital gardening, finally completing a book I’ve been talking about for nearly a year now and actively working on since autumn. It is called, How to Grow a Greener Thumb: the Art and Science of Tending a Garden.
It has grown from a group of posts known as Green Thumb Tips that I wrote for my previous blog, A Forest Garden, between 2016 and 2019. Those original essays, revised and freshly edited, are the basis for a collection of 30 Green Thumb Tips offered in this new book. There are also six Botany for Gardeners lessons, a collection of quotations, poetry, and a few additional informative chapters on related topics. The book is illustrated with photos taken here in our own garden between 2010 and last week. I hope it will be interesting and inspiriting for anyone who is interested in gardening, landscape design, botany, ecology, and photography.
One of the best parts of this project has been connecting with friends who were willing to read the earlier drafts and share their comments. I have been reminded of how generous and smart those friends can be. I have enjoyed their visits so much as they picked up and returned the manuscript, or emailed about it, or simply shared their own similar experiences and expertise. And they have taught me a great deal in the process.

The digital ebook was finally available on Amazon’s Kindle website midweek, and the link will take you to a more complete description of the contents and a link to download it for free, if you belong to Kindle Unlimited. The ebook version is also available to purchase if you don’t subscribe to that lending service.
I am still working on ironing out the formatting for the paperback and hardback versions. Fingers crossed that Kindle Direct Publishing will finally accept my updated files today! If you have been thinking of publishing using this platform, just know that for all of its advantages, you need to be prepared for a steep learning curve to use the software effectively. The lesson of course is that whatever we do remains a work in progress. I’ve found ways to improve the text on every one of those many, many edits! Just like we are always puttering and making things better in our gardens!
It is good to have something interesting to do while the ground is frozen and the garden mostly sleeps. We had a daffodil ready to open before this latest round of frozen weather, and a few Hellebores were blooming. Now they are all hanging limply, waiting for a thaw. It is like someone hit ‘pause’ on the awaking. We are looking forward to everything thawing out a little by Valentine’s Day.

It is time to begin the annual winter pruning, cutting back the rose-of-Sharon trees and cleaning up some of the congestion from last year’s growth. I hope to finish submitting files for the book by the time the weather warms enough to get busy with the clippers and saws. Soon the ferns will begin to emerge and the garden will fill again with daffodils.
But this morning it all lies under a fresh blanket of snow, encased in ice crystals, with the earth as hard as concrete. I’m listening to the wind blowing through the trees, dreaming of spring.

With appreciation to Jim Stephens of Garden Ruminations, who
hosts Six on Saturday each week.


Goodness, that weather has been in the news. It has been unseasonably warm here, and some fruit trees are blooming prematurely, which could be bad when the rain resumes and dislodges the developing fruit. Ice in the trees sounds much more dreadful though.
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It’s true that this polar vortex was hard this winter, and even here in Europe, it’s been a hot topic. This explains many of the low-pressure systems that have affected Spain and Portugal in recent weeks, bringing heavy rainfall here in France. Do you have large amounts of snow? What was the minimum temperature where you are?
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We aren’t getting piles of snow, partly because our heaviest snow had freezing rain on top, weighting it down. But it is getting down into the mid-teens many nights, which is very cold for us. We are running 20- 30 degrees Farenheit below average. I’m sorry to hear that you are also having heavy rain and low temps at your home, too.
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Congratulations on the book! How exciting! I guess it begins to warm up here, but since I am wearing fewer layers, I feel just as cold! So pretty to see ice ion the branches, but it can be so devastating. I have seen a lot of images this year of badly damaged trees. I guess it is still warmer there than here, based on the plant life!
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Thank you ❤ We were blessed that our ice was fairly light and our trees came through OK. There are areas to our south that had it far worse. Those photos were taken 2 days after the ice storm, so some had also melted or evaporated. We are looking forward to warmer weather!
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Thank you ❤ We were blessed that our ice was fairly light and our trees came through OK. There are areas to our south that had it far worse. Those photos were taken 2 days after the ice storm, so some had also melted or evaporated. We are looking forward to warmer weather!
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Thank you ❤ We were blessed that our ice was fairly light and our trees came through OK. There are areas to our south that had it far worse. Those photos were taken 2 days after the ice storm, so some had also melted or evaporated. We are looking forward to warmer weather!
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Thank you ❤ We were blessed that our ice was fairly light and our trees came through OK. There are areas to our south that had it far worse. Those photos were taken 2 days after the ice storm, so some had also melted or evaporated. We are looking forward to warmer weather!
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