So sorry to hear about your family's bout with covid, but grateful it was no worse than it was. And you're definitely right about sunshine. If nothing else, it's a mood lifter. But it does have proven health benefits, and hopefully you'll get more of it soon.

I'm so sorry I never got back in response to your last message, Melissa. It's been hectic here AFTER the holidays, and I'm not in good health myself. But I hope you know you could never offend me...probably not even if you tried, lol. I value you much too much ;)

Flowers will be here soon...and Spring soon after!

Please do continue your post when you can. Even if your garden is lacking sunshine, your writing is sunshine in our sometimes dreary lives.

John

Well, I sure hope that you both get better fast. January doesn't really bother me, in and of itself. Here in Tuscany the weather's been dark and grey, too, but luckily we kept on getting real fine,misty rain-not every day, but pretty consistently. I've been able to get quite a bit done out at my land. The total lack of cold temperatures remains a worry, however. The temperatures are the way they ought to be in spring,but the lack of light and high humidity don't allow roses to bloom well.

I wish I could share people's feelings about "hoping for spring"and such like, but considering the trend that the weather's taken in these last few years,I mainly feel apprehensive, sad to say. Last year the heat hit about the 3rd week in May,effectively troncating the rose season completely,and it never left.Now, true, last year was also horribly dry, whereas this year-here at least, and so far-it hasn't been so bad. I hope and pray that this year the weather will be kinder to us,but frankly, if this trend continues I really will have to stop thinking much about trying to grow roses; what's the point if they can't ever give a really nice flush of bloom, due to excessive heat or darkness? It's also sad to see that I think I have two more casualties -heat kills slowly, and two roses that I planted last year are gradually turning black from the base of the plant. I don't make "official" new year's resolutions, but unofficially I have resolved to start building frames for shade structures over the younger plants NOW, so that as soon as it starts getting consistently sunny and hot I'll be all set to put up shade cloth.

You write so beautifully, Melissa that it's always a pleasure to read about your experiences in the garden. I hope the worst is over with regard to Covid, but being sick when it's gray and gloomy must be a trial. Waiting for rain that doesn't come is a stressor in and of itself, and we are all hostage to the weather these days. I'm hostage to the squirrels, who have eaten the new leaves off some of the roses that had shorter barriers around them, which causes me to question whether this experiment with growing roses again will fail, especially when there will shortly be hungry babies. The physical and mental strength isn't there to put up much of a fight, so this is all still very much an experiment that may fail. Seeing others' lush and beautiful rose gardens makes me long to have the same, but I may be whistling dixie.

bart, I admire your grit and determination, and I hope you can keep your faraway rose garden going, but you are also having to factor in climate change. One way or another many of us will be facing hard choices in the coming years.

So this is just a curiosity question. Ingrid has often lamented the squirrels eating her plants amd while I have tons of problems with deer, elk and rabbits the numerous squirrels here don’t cause any problems-not even with bulbs.

I live in Western Washington. What is it that the squirrels are so happy with that they don’t bother my gardens at all?

I think the desert does not have other plants to eat, oursteelers. Ingrid's is the only buffet in the area.

Here, I always wonder why one plant is attacked and not another.

Dear folks, I wrote an answer, detailed, thoughtful, two days ago and then £"^?!!* Houzz told me I wasn't signed in, and lost it. Well. John, thanks for your response and your invariable kindness. I hope you experience soon a return to better health. Bart, glad you've been getting rain. I appreciate your dread of the coming summer; it's been cool enough here, with needed chill temperatures, that I've been able to live the winter without worrying overmuch about the future. This, though this coming summer looks likely to be another droughty one. I'm climate-proofing the garden as fast as I can! I hope you do get enough cool weather that you can feel it as such, and forget last summer before the next hot weather begins: good luck.

Ingrid, I hope your baby garden survives and grows. I'm regularly maddened by the deer that eat all the new growth on my roses and other shrubs, but your problems are on another whole level of difficulty. Good luck. Thanks for the kind words, too.

Over the past few days, things have happened. IT RAINED. A whole day, a respectable rainfall that will carry us forward for a while. The stream was roaring again in the bottom of the valley. The next day, yesterday, dawned as dark as usual, but around noon the sun came out and it turned brilliantly clear, and it's clear again today. I'll go out to work soon. Yesterday my convalescence from Covid went backward, but the sun drew me out all the same. I didn't feel either good or energetic, but I pruned and pulled weeds, rested at intervals, and didn't feel any worse than I would have staying inside on the sofa. Oh, the power of light.

I was wanting to say a little more about terracing. Simply, it's leveling a space by shifting soil from the higher side to the lower side. When I can get them I lay logs or trunks--long stout lengths of wood--along the lower edges, fixing them in place with pieces of rebar, to hold the moved ground in place. I never have enough of this kind of material. The soil I've been shifting lately has been nearly pure gray clay, a discouraging sight on ground that's had grass, weeds, subshrubs, shrubs growing on it for twenty years. It still needs vast amounts of organic amendment: more than the over hundred tons of old hay we've used in the garden since we came.

I do the terracing a little at a time: when I feel like it. We don't move earth in any big way, after an early experience where we had a tractor level a road, and provoked a landslide. Now I dig individual planting holes, and any earth-moving is on a small scale and gradually.

I plant thickly and continuously, partly for aesthetics, partly for ecological reasons, and partly to keep the ground in place. It wants to slide downhill. The plants' roots hold the soil; they absorb excess water, which limits runoff and flooding and stores the water for later; they help create a layer of organic matter at the soil surface, which also helps water absorption. Having lots of shrubs and trees in particular means I can terrace, because their roots will hold the steeper, but small, areas of ground that result from terracing. Also, clay tends to stay where it's put.