A Midwestern Flower Garden — Beautifully Dead In the Dead of Winter

By Barbara Falconer Newhall

We were invited for lunch, and yes the lunch was lovely, and so was the company. But I couldn’t wait to grab my trusty point-and-shoot and head outdoors to see how my favorite flower garden was faring under a half foot of snow and temperatures below zero.

Apparently, my hosts — the gardeners — were willing to leave their flower garden to fend for itself during the chill, late winter weather of the northern Midwest: the only footprints I spotted in their garden were animal tracks, and there were plenty of those.

Frozen north though this was, there was no shortage of wildlife criss-crossing the yard and the lake beyond, my hostess told me: Squirrels red and gray, chipmunks, rabbits, mice, voles, racoons, mink, deer, coyote and red fox. Also, bald eagles, great horned owls, cardinals, woodpeckers, goldfinches and chickadees.

By the time my point-and-shoot and I were finished with our chilly ramble through leafless trees and faded flower stalks, the animal footprints had company — the clumpy tracks of a well-shod human.

 

 

For more photos of my favorite garden in summer, go to “Point-and-Shoot Heaven — Photographing a Garden Just Before Dusk.” For a glimpse of my not-quite-so-splendid garden go to “My Rain-Battered Garden — Nothing is Forever, Not Even Those Poppies.”
Next week: The woods in winter.