Snowy Shots From The Garden

We woke up to snow this morning, much to the excitement of the children.  I immediately thought of the hundreds of bulbs still waiting for me to plant.  Hopefully the snow will be gone by Friday, when my husband generously offered to help me get them into the ground.



You can see the roses still have leaves and mounds of catmint still need to be cut back.  I need more fall weather before winter arrives to stay.



Here is the view from just inside the back gate.  We have been enjoying watching the cute little birds that flock to the crabapple trees to eat the fruit.



The contorted filbert is lovely with branches stripped almost clean of leaves and catkins dangling like Christmas ornaments.  It actually produced a couple of nuts this year.



A clump of Siberian iris in front of 'Green Mountain' boxwoods forms an interesting contrast of textures. 



For now there is plenty of texture in the garden, though soon the last of the deciduous leaves will fall from shrubs and perennials will collapse into piles of mush.



The dwarf Arctic willow still has leaves, pretty fluffy thing.  I'll cut it back to the ground in spring to keep it from getting too large.



This is the main sunny garden.  I'm still scratching my head about what changes to make next spring, because it's not quite right yet.  Maybe I can fit a few more English roses here, but do I really need more roses? 



Straw-colored hydrangea clusters hold mounds of snow.  Just looking at that chilly metal bench makes me shiver.



Maybe by next winter the swing set will be mostly camouflaged by quick growing 'Hall's Purple' honeysuckle.  The leaves did turn deep purple last month, which made a Halloweeny scene with the deep maroon leaves of the 'Shasta' doublefile viburnum in the corner. 



The jagged boulders look interesting in the snow.  The little shrub on the bottom right is the Koreanspice viburnum that had such great fall color.



I can't count the number of time my toddler tipped this fountain over in the past year.  Maybe by next summer he'll have outgrown that urge.



Here is a final view looking east, with one of my favorite 'Green Tower' boxwoods taking center stage.  Glancing out the window, I see that the snow has melted from the street and from the edges of the garden beds.  Phew.  There is hope for bulb planting later this week.