This appeared some years back in Horticulture's column, A Note From the Editor. It sums up why winter is one of my favorite gardening seasons . . .

I calculate that over the course of a year I spend roughly 60 hours simply looking at my garden and its plants. That works out to something more than 10 minutes a day, on average. I have never exactly kept track of these minutes, but I know there have been countless times when I have stood looking at something long enough to let a cup of coffee go cool or a glass of wine grow warm. As I say, this number accounts strictly for simple gazing, though that does not mean the time is spent idly or that it is wasted. I am hard at work trying to unravel the secrets of the plants and the garden, to clear up problems and answer questions of the sort that keep gardeners awake in the middle of the night. These are not the sort of questions that torment tax attorneys and politicians.

In summer there are enough things to ponder that I often wake at the crack of dawn to get on with these debates and yet invariably end the morning with a list of "Things to Think About" that is longer than the one I had when I got out of bed. Usually I begin the day peering out from the kitchen, but it isn't long before some planting, real or imagined, demands a closer look, and I am off for heated conversation with myself about design and cultural matters. Do the rodgersias really belong next to the kirengeshoma, and why is one so vigorous and the other so poky? Is 'Blue Queen' the right salvia next to Achillea 'Moonshine'? Is there too much gray foliage along the walk or not enough? Often I can have the same debate three or four days running and reach four or five different conclusions. Probably I should carry a notebook, but then I would spend less time studying the garden and too much time scribbling notes, which are better made at night when your head is cooler and less full of ideas.

With the garden reduced to its skeleton in winter there is just as much to look at and stew about. The ivies emerge from a summer cloaked by other plants and show themselves against walls and fences. The deciduous hollies, bland and unnoticed in summer, are jeweled now. Should we have more of them? Perhaps that would improve our bird population. Then maybe we need more birdhouses and feeders, but where to put them, to best help the birds and the garden? Unhindered by the annoyance of all the plants that in summer crowd the ground, the garden is replanted and rearranged morning after morning through the winter. Hedges are installed and brought to perfection in a moment. One morning I wrapped the vegetable garden with a low, gnarled cordon of pears before even finishing the first cup of coffee.

During the last year I have devoted a lot of thought to a motley assembly of conifers loitering against the front of our house. They are overgrown and battling one another. All but a few need to be removed. But just what should replace them and in what order has kept me staring at the front of the house for hours. The neighbors may wonder if I am thinking of painting the place or changing the window arrangement. Or maybe they imagine I have been locked out of the house--and if so, why. But I am only lost in thought over the countless options. It is this never-ending process of evaluation that makes gardening so maddening and so thrilling. A garden is never so good as it will be next year and yet it is never so bad that the imagination and a steady gaze cannot find in it bits of beauty and possibility.

-- Brooks (brooksbie@hotmail.com), March 28, 2000

Answers

I TOLD my husband that I'm NOTout in the garden "doing nothing" ... these are important ruminations going on! :)

-- helen (handbasket_helena@hotmail.com), March 28, 2000.

Brooks, I love that. THAT is me! I also make "diagrams" of where I"m going to plant what, both from an aerial view and a front view. I hardly ever get around to actually doing any of what I draw, but it's so much fun to spend the time contemplating! I also like to drive past my house, to try and see what it looks like to the neighbors.. LOL. Ahh..I have so many plans! :-)

-- kritter (kritter@adelphia.net), March 28, 2000.

Yep...that about sums it up, Brooks.

One of the cleaning people I hired through the years was a neighbor of mine. Her house was ALWAYS immaculate. It took ME an entire day to clean the house at that time, but she whizzed through my house in 2 hours. I could spend 2 hours on the kitchen alone...just to see it totally destroyed by the end of the day. [grin]

The difference between the way SHE did things and the way *I* did things was: *SHE* didn't look at the window over the kitchen sink with all the splashes upon it and think "I have to move ALL those green tomatoes off the sill to even GET to the window. I'm sure there's another place I could set those tomatoes to ripen. Hmmm...where might that place be?" [takes walk around house looking for place.] *SHE* didn't look at the glass door on the oven and think "Why do the dogs always rub their noses on the oven door? Where ARE the dogs, BTW? I hope they're not fighting again." [takes walk to look for dogs.] *SHE* didn't look at every smudge on the walls, doors, appliances, etc. and think "How did cheese end up on the wall 4 feet higher than any kid in this house? Do I have any cheese left, or should I put it on the LIST?" [checks to see if we have any cheese.] *SHE* didn't notice that the plant [on the window] had roots coming out of the hole in the bottom. "Better transplant that feller before it dies." [takes plant outside and transplants into bigger pot.]

Then there was the AFTERMATH thinking [done after each room.] "Boy...that looks nice, BUT...it would look even BETTER if we had a [fill in blank] over there." [takes out Sears catalog to see if such an item exists.] "Maybe the plant in the frontroom would look better in here." [takes plant from frontroom and tests it in new location. NOPE...takes plant back to frontroom.]

SOME people are just BORN procrastinators, and all the thinking I've described above are procrastination devices. I read a self-help book once to overcome my procrastination. It didn't help. We all want to do what we enjoy doing. I enjoy programming. I'd spend a week writing a program that saved me 2 seconds/day in something else I didn't enjoy doing. When faced with a task that we DON'T enjoy doing, we do the best we can to throw some enjoyment into the task. It's much more fun to PLAN a garden than actually get out there and just DO IT. It's much more fun to PLAN an exercise program than actually get out there and just DO IT.

My neighbor...the one who could clean my house in two hours...LOVED to clean. She didn't like to think, plan, read, and had no interest in plants, dogs, and DEFINITELY couldn't handle SNAKES. She had endless energy and was definitely NOT stupid. She started out as a keypunch operator, but I think she was laid off for some reason. I said, "Laurie, you LOVE to clean. Why don't you start your own cleaning service?" She did, and was QUITE successful at it. She knocked out several houses each day, acquiring tax-free income. Unfortunately, she was ALSO a hypochondriac [and KNEW it.] She'd oftentimes come over and tell me about her LATEST symptoms. Well, one day her symptoms were real. She suffered lower back pain. It turned out that she had advanced liver cancer.

Laurie and I had different philosophies on child-rearing. Laurie used a toybox for her 2 girls. I felt a toybox was a place for broken toys. If they weren't broken BEFORE they went into the box, they would surely break while within. She asked me once why I had a shelf in every room of the house on which to place toys. I said, "because the kids want to be where *I* am, and *I* don't stay in the kids' rooms."

Sorry to have moved so far off-topic, Brooks, but you brought back fond memories of my now gone neighbor.

-- Anita (notgiving@anymore.thingee), April 01, 2000.

Anita, I am *impressed*!

You actually read that book on overcoming procrastination that I've often thought I should read! ;-)

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), April 01, 2000.

Yes, Tricia. LOL. The REASON you're procrastinating on reading it is because you KNOW it won't do you any good. LOL.

I don't know whether this link belongs HERE or under the WHO TO INVITE thread, but when Pieter posted this on the uncensored forum, it sure made ME think more....like I needed to do that, eh?

LOSER, or GOING FOR THE GOLD?

-- Anita (notgiving@anymore.thingee), April 01, 2000.

Loved that thread, Anita - and I've since recommended it to others. I did it right away, maybe I can undercome the procrastination habit since I can't overcome it :-)

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), April 05, 2000.