Tomorrow we are pulling out the frosted annuals tomorrow and that will be it for gardening till May when we can start planting again. With Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up that will keep the winter blues away. January or February we go to Aruba for a week. That helps also. I also just joined a gym and planning to go several times a week. The rest of the winter I just dream of what I want to plant once nice weather comes again.

I have worked around that LOL the only month I don't garden much is in January.

I love winter gardens, so I planted hamamelis, chimonanthus, sarcococcas, edgeworthias, daphnes, camellias, hellobores, loniceras fragrantissimas and some other plants which fortunately all flower at some point between the end of November and February in my zone 8. What I usually do is taking photos and being happy to have them around :) . I also add some fertilisers (unless it is really cold, usually in January), plan for my summer beds, change plans, start over again... There is always something that needs to be done in the garden.

Autumn and winter are my busy times - sowing, pricking out, pruning, cuttings, digging in cover crops, bare-root planting, clearing, fencing, hedging, bulb planting, compost turning, leaf raking - summer is just a bit of gentle weeding and deadheading.

About to till in sugar and thyme oil in a giant reset to battle nematodes come spring. Interrupt the life cycle is what I keep hearing. I will soon plant peas, and spinach. Dark green anything to feast on through winter really. Peas are done here by April.

Now, before the snow has really started, I enjoy the various evergreens that range from groundcover up to large trees, though once the snow starts the groundcovers and some of the shrubs will disappear. Most are green, but I have some with tones of blue, red-orange, purple and gold scattered around for contrast. I have also planted some winter or really early bloomers such as Hellebore, witch hazel/Hamamelis and retulated iris, so most years I start seeing flowers sometime in March. Currently, my Major Wheeler honeysuckle/Lonicera sempervirens has a few blooms still showing color, even after temperatures down to 20F. I have planned for nice views from various indoor windows, regardless of the season.

I am spreading manure and wood ash in the veggie garden today, and will continue to use oversized pliers to remove invasive shrubs until the ground freezes in the woods.. I've put green and colored branches in my planters and will put a few lights out in the garden soon. I will look at various shrubs and trees to plan any needed pruning, though I will most likely wait until early spring to do the cuts. And once it is colder and snow arrives, I will bundle up, slap on skis or snowshoes, and go out to enjoy the woods and fields either on my own property or in other areas. If the weather is really bad, I read, do woodturning, or cook. Many folks I know maintain feeders and water for birds to add interest and activity to the winter garden, but I stopped feeding when we started seeing bears on a fairly regular basis. I would need to bring the feeders in for the season before there is much natural food available for the birds, and it doesn't seem fair to feed them only until late winter when they are starting to breed.

My first hamamelis to flower - Rochester. The color is so lively and I love plants that thrive against all odds, in spite of hostile conditions and under the snow, the resilient ones.

And some other guys, helleborus foetidus and iris unguicularis

Planning and obsessing, lots of planning and obsessing haha. I’m still really new to gardening so I’m spending the winter trying to learn as much as possible and doing tons of planning for spring. I also created a MASSIVE excel spreadsheet where I organized every single outdoor plant/seed/seedling I have including all the plants I intend to order and have numerous columns to help categorize sub requirements, next division date, soil requirements, location and all sorts of information.

im also trying my hand at propagating seeds. I have 3 different stratification methods for rose seeds going right now.

I’m also interviewing like crazy for a new job. I just graduated with my masters degree and finally get to begin my career (wish me luck! Other wise I won’t be able to afford all my ridiculous plans haha). Lastly I’m going back to the gym and eating healthy again because I’ve gotten slightly chubby haha

NHBabs, that’s great you’re removing overgrown shrubs yourself! I have this huge strip of land between my house and the neighbors, that I own, and he refers to it as “the no mans land” because the last home owner let it get very over grown. I’ve been working all year on chopping down these nasty dead bushes covered in thorns and these weird woody vines (officially been in our home for 1 year now!). There’s also an invasion of English Ivy that’s formed a thick mat and is making its way into my lawn (grr!). I’ve chopped just about everything down by hand (no chainsaw) but now I have no way to get rid of the brush so I’ll just have to call a removal company, I don’t think I can safely burn it all (plus god only knows what’s in this junk).

Kali, the shrubs I am taking out aren't overgrown in the traditional sense since they are in spots where they have as much room as they need out in our woods. Mine are true invasives that spread into wild land via seed like buckthorn, Japanese barberry, shrubby Asian honeysuckle, and oriental bittersweet - they displace native plants. I live on an old farm and the second growth has a lot of these pests. So I remove them in the hope that the native dogwoods, Viburnums, oaks, maples, trilliums, lady's slippers, etc. will have the advantage. Selective removal. :>) And don't be too impressed - I am not a particularly big or strong person, but my soil is loose in the woods, so I use pliers to pull out the smaller stuff, and loppers to cut larger stuff to 2" or so after which I paint the fresh stumps with herbicide so they don't resprout. Most of our invasives are still fairly small, but anything that is too large gets DH with the chain saw.

Congrats on removing your mess! My sympathy on the ivy. I think it is too cold for that here. And I am quite impressed by your organization. I save plant order lists and tags so I can find names if needed, but the only thing I tried to organize was my many clematis, and that tapered off after 3 or 4 years.

Baby, still sounds like you do a ton of work! I still have to get the brush transported out and then take care of the ivy, which is going to take forever. I should take before and after photos!

I just moved from 1 1/4 acre property with about 7 raised beds to a small in-town place!

A lovely young woman offered to share her 8'000 SF yard with me last summer, but due to some severe burns and a VERY hot summer that didn't work out to well.

I've asked my DH to figure out a couple of raised beds in my small back yard! In the mean time, my daughter is getting married this summer and I have a project of planting succulents in antique teacups!

I think I'll be fine with a couple of raised beds for fresh stuff and not have to do sauce etc.. Love my herbs! Nancy