The gardens are really asleep for the winter.

I am not ruling out a huge thaw, but as of right now, it looks like all the perennial plants will not have to worry much about a lack of snow cover to protect them from deep freezes. If they survived the ice storm, the snowstorms of the last week should do well to protect them this year.

Nancy went out today to get a couple of photos of the yard. We probably have two feet around the house, but part of that might be windblown.

Aside from the winter protection, I love the look of snow on the plants in winter. I am not sure, however, that it is worth the four hours of snow removal that I had to do in the 48 hours from Saturday morning to this morning.

The only other marginally gardening thing I did over the weekend was bring in our potted Christmas tree for decorations. We will give it a healthy drink of water before taking it back outside a couple of days after Christmas. I didn't get a garden spot found for it, but it should survive OK and we'll plant it in the spring.

Sunday's column was about the plant selections for 2009 from several different plant associations. The column this coming Sunday will be about a number of places you can pick up gardening ideas in classes this winter.

I am taking some time off for the holidays and probably won't be blogging again until early in the New Year, when I finally will be tackling the stack of gardening catalogs now waiting beside my reading chair.

Have a great Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year. We'll be planting peas in less that four months.

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