January seems like a questionable time to start a garden journal but this is also the best way I know to capture a whole year in the garden.
This month included a lot of wood chip distribution. Compost and wood chips are some of the best ways to build your soil and can be protective against the extremes of climate change.
Luckily it wasn’t too cold or rainy at the beginning of the month so we made a lot of progress and finished distributing the pile before the crushed granite arrived for the potholes in the street. There was a victory dance.
The most amazing thing in our yard at this time of year is the Hellebores (Helleborus/Lenten Rose) budding out. We even had our first bloom. I will always say yes to plants that bloom in winter.
Many of our deciduous trees and shrubs start showing signs of life at this time of year even though they won’t leaf out for a while. I think they ducked back inside after our recent run of sub-freezing temperatures. Brrrr!
I got bulbs planted before the temperatures dropped. I planted two varieties that need a chill period and they got one. Brr. It dropped into the 20s and 30s.
Most concerning is that we didn’t receive a hard freeze until the middle of January. That’s a few months late for us. January is one of the rainiest months in Olympia but we have had very little rain so far this month. I feel like I can see climate change in real-time in my yard. Over the past few years, one of my goals has been to adjust what we grow, how we water, and anything we can do to help our landscape. I have 50 plants on order from the Thurston Conservation District plant sale. (That sounds like a lot, but I was pretty conservative this year. LOL.)
I look for native plants that are seasonal drought tolerant, fire-resistant, a mix of deciduous and evergreen, plus have features that support wildlife. I’m trying to select plants that can handle a wider range. Our USDA zone is 8B but I have started to look for plants that can handle Zones 6-7 cold and Zone 9 heat.
One of the most delightful surprises from my indoor garden is my Abutilon striatum or flowering maple. We purchased it from Annie’s six years ago as a 4-inch pot. It’s about 8 feet tall and almost that wide. We wrestled it inside and up the stairs to the high ceilings of the office under a skylight. I had to cut it back a bit to get it to fit in the space but I was rewarded with new growth and so many blooms! Last year it dropped many of its leaves and looked terrible. This year, leaf drop has been minimal.
Photo by Jonathan Marchal on Unsplash
