Snow — a garden perspective
Like many Niagarans, I awoke on Tuesday morning to face a driveway knee-deep in snow and the prospect of Paul and I spending the morning with shovels in hand — the benefits of snow were far from my mind.
Today, with the driveway clear (thanks Mike!), glorious blue skies and sparkling snow blanketing the garden, I’m looking for that illusive silver lining twist to the storm. What are the benefits of snow?
In Niagara gardens, snow can be a blessing. It is an effective insulator, protecting our precious plants from harsh freeze/ thaw cycles. Think of snow as a cosy down comforter for dormant perennials, bulbs, ground covers and shrubs.
The garden has been laid bare for much of this winter, I’ve watched the ground-covers shrivel up in the cold, dry winds. I pulled extra fallen leaves around evergreen hellebores to protect their precious crop of buds during a recent mild spell. A thick blanket of snow acts as insulating layer, helping to regulate fluctuating soil temperatures and protect against drying winter winds. As the snow melts, it slowly seeps into the soil, watering perennial roots, bulbs and shrubbery.
The Old Farmer’s Almanac calls snow the “poor man’s fertilizer.” Nitrogen attaches to snowflakes as the snow falls through the atmosphere and is slowly released into the soil as the snow melts.
A garden blanketed with fresh snow offers us a fresh perspective, if only we take the time to really slow down and take a closer look.
I headed out this morning with an open heart and camera in hand, hoping to discover a little magic in the back garden — I was not disappointed.
A fresh blanket of snow really helps to show off the bones of the garden. Snow-rimmed tree limbs, along with evergreen spruce, juniper and pine trees, dusted with sparkling snow, remind me of the value of including conifers, trees and shrubbery in the garden plan.
Structures like pergolas, garden sheds, fences and obelisks add a feeling of permanence — they stand out when the garden is stripped down to basics, giving them a common colour scheme helps tie the garden together.
The snow also buries the shortcomings of a garden — empty planters, barren beds awaiting spring planting, annuals/perennials that didn’t perform as expected — the snowy garden offers a clean slate.
The concrete patio, walkways and even the wooden deck are completely blanketed in white, but other concrete accessories, like our picnic table, benches and bird bath have adopted a new look. Piled high with powdery snow, they remind me of decadent confections, iced and shaped to snowy perfection. The embossed edging on the table and benches (usually blending into the background) suddenly takes on a new importance.
The snow in the back garden was up over my knees, so I had to retreat to the deck and study the garden with the lens of my camera. A ring of silver grass (Miscanthus sinensis ‘Morning Light’) celebrates the sunlight with flamboyant golden plumes dancing above the snow. The inner circle garden seems content to settle back and sleep beneath the snow. When the grasses are cut back in the spring, it will be her turn to step into the spotlight with a cast of spring bulbs taking centre stage.
Along the back border, the blackened and dried seed heads of bee balm, lemon balm, goatsbeard and coneflowers, stand surprisingly tall through the snow. I’ve been watching the interesting forms, lines, spires and spheres through the kitchen window — they remind me of line drawings as they stand out against the white backdrop.
My last stop was the front garden, scene of yesterday’s massive digging out project. The garden along the driveway is buried up to its neck in snow — the tips of the David Austin roses barely poke through the pile, but mercifully, they are finally protected from the harsh westerly winds with insulating snow.
The dry stone retaining wall that lines the garden is completely buried, but a spray of thread-leaf coreopsis caught my eye. A delicate looking spray of tiny flowers, supported by wire-thin stems, decorated the corner of the garden. This inhospitable location, where the public sidewalk and our driveway meet, was piled high with snow, and yet this wispy spray of dried flowers stood her ground, defying the odds.
Nearby, a flourish of northern sea oats, wind blown but still holding its form and rustybrown colouring, offered winglike seed pods and waving foliage.
Finally, spiky brown seed cones of echinacea poked their heads through the drifts of snow. One particularly defiant candidate caught my attention — how was this solitary stem able to stand tall in such adverse conditions? She seems determined to share her cache of seeds with the neighbourhood birds. Her resolve to stand tall speaks of resilience, generosity and old-fashioned spunk. We could all take a page from her book.