ILLINOIS YARD AND GARDEN

Ringing in the New Year
with dreams of green

The New Year is upon us, and with it comes the potential for a great gardening year.

My dreams in January are somewhat realized in early May, and go down in blazing defeat by July's heat. With that, I drop into the same category as 99 percent of all gardeners, and then start making up my mind to change for the coming year. It never works.

Over the years, my little 1/6 of an acre, including house, driveway and alley has blossomed from a dirt patch with three large oaks and a walnut tree to a green forest without any oaks or walnuts. Nature and the insurance company both decided the trees were best removed. So did my neighbors, who would have been the recipient of one oak if it decided to take a horizontal nap.

Now, in the midst of winter, I can look out any of my front or back windows and marvel at the job nature did.

Sure, I had to buy the plants as nature has little time to spend shopping at the local garden centers, or the ones throughout the Midwest that appear to reach out and grab my wallet as I'm driving by.

And of course, nature looks at the shovels lining my garage, the feet on my body, and the extra insulation around my mid-section and decides it would be better for all to have me plant each specimen.

Still, I'm just the caretaker, the un-hired help who lends a hand or a foot every now and then. As much as it is easy to claim all the credit, and I will do that for the four stonewalls and subsequent pulled muscles, everything else is really just management.

Every January there are dreams of a larger acreage with carefully planted and manicured trees with azaleas, rhododendrons, hostas, ferns and viburnums blooming profusely under their branches. Graceful flowerbeds that bloom continuously from late winter through late fall surrounds long garden sweeps. To have something finally manicured and stay that way. Sigh.

My current dream is a reflecting pool in the back yard instead of what looks like from a mile away as turf, but in truth is more a production bed for creeping Charlie, violets and clover. A couple more trees in the front to screen off the road would be more than nice.

The four stonewalls are clamoring for a continuation around my front hill and my side of my neighbor's driveway. At least that's someplace I can outshine nature.

And worst of all, there are millions of plants somewhere out there that are absolutely wonderful and begging for a good home.

Those aren't unrealistic dreams. Every gardener has them. It's nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, they are to be relished. Dreams push us as gardeners. They give us something to strive for. Something to hope for.

I blame HGTV, the onslaught of garden catalogs, and winter's chill for forcing those wishes on us in recent years. Maybe "blame" is a harsh word, but gardeners must be ever vigilant with the information presented on a nationwide basis. It's easy to get swept away with southern gardening, but January's reality should snap us out of that.

So, it's time to get out the pencil and paper and start figuring out the how's, where's and when's. The latter two tend to be the easiest. The former requires that extra condition of dollars, which impacts the when's.

Ah, January's dreams...and spring's reality.

David Robson is an Extension Educator, Horticulture, at the Springfield Extension Center, University of Illinois Extension, P.O. Box 8199, Springfield, IL 62791. Telephone: (217) 782-6515. E-mail: drobson@uiuc.edu

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