It’s not that this past winter was particularly cold. The high-low thermometer on the back patio bottomed out at minus 14 degrees on Dec. 9, which is hardly record-breaking. What was notable was that it got cold at the end of September and stayed cold through the beginning of March.
This is not entirely a bad thing. I can’t recall another winter in the past two decades where I didn’t need to water the garden even once. Although January was dry, the snow that fell before Christmas had only just melted before February brought us a marathon of snowstorms.
Because a blanket of snow insulates the garden from killing cold, Front Range gardeners have always bemoaned our lack of snow cover. Even though this year the snow persisted, there probably was not enough on the ground for us to enjoy any real benefit. If fewer than the usual number of plants do die, it could be because of the absence of temperature swings more than anything else.
January and February warm spells that help Colorado gardeners keep their sanity in a normal winter did not occur. As much as we enjoy working outside during a spell of warm days between blizzards, such erratic weather is very hard on plants. Seduced into breaking dormancy before it is safe to do so, new buds and leaves have no defense against early spring cold fronts. So it is that many a plant that appears happy in January and February is long gone by Easter.
That’s business as usual for Colorado, and we gardeners have come to accept this as a fair tradeoff for being able to get a lot of work done during winter warm spells. For me, January and February are the prime time for construction projects. For one thing, soil is at its most friable and workable soon after it thaws. Areas that were as dense as concrete the previous fall become as fluffy as a freshly shaken down comforter, albeit temporarily.
Winter is also a blessedly tranquil season when our garden makes fewer demands on us. Even really hard work is satisfying to muscles that haven’t had a good workout since autumn and to cobwebbed minds. (Building two new rock gardens was my plan for this winter, but the ground never did thaw.)
Still, my biggest gripe was the lack of winter flowers. A peek at previous year’s calendars proves that I am indeed not imagining seeing snow crocuses and irises in my garden in February every winter for the past two decades.
This year, the only flowers stalwart enough to stay in bloom the entire winter were pansies and violas planted last fall. Serious gardeners aren’t supposed to take such common and frivolous flowers seriously, but I have been grateful watching these cheerful little gadabouts go through the entire winter, blooms intact.
Marcia Tatroe’s most recent book is “Cutting Edge Gardening in the Intermountain West,” ($29.95, Johnson Books). E-mail her at mtatroe@q.com.
