What is magical about the viburnum is that it blooms earlier than my earliest-blooming Annabelle hydrangeas.  Like snowdrops or bleeding heart, viburnum is invaluable in a Wisconsin garden because when the snow melts, all you have is mud.  So the more early bloomers, the better.

But I am as hard to teach as my nine-year-old son. (I know, isn’t it lovely to see your favorite [not!] traits shine brightly in your offspring, glaring at you, humbling you?) So when I was buying flowers from my favorite sales contact at my wholesaler to create my typical MGG bouquet and she said, “No, I’m sorry; we don’t have any hydrangeas for sale, but we have viburnum,” I took it.  And I fell madly in love with it, learning that maybe I don’t know everything.  In fact, the more I pause and let others in, the more I truly learn.  Tricky for a know-it-all to master!

I bought the viburnum from my wholesaler again and again that winter–as much as I could when it was available.  So imagine my thrill when I saw it for sale early that spring at my local garden center!  I scooped it up and planted it.  I love it in my garden, as it blooms just as the snow melts and well before my precious Annabelle hydrangeas.  I try to resist cutting all of it for my weekly flower-share bouquets because I can see the stunning shrubs from both my kitchen window and my family room window.  Then again, the more I cut for my clients’ bouquets, the better it grows, making me think there is something to the idea that the energy you put out is the energy you get back, which my wise brother taught me.

As I get ready to do an early-June wedding, I wish I had planted more viburnum–way more viburnum.  And as I plan and design a future client’s garden for spring 2017, with all of their desires and wants percolating in my creative process and knowing the one plant they are currently gaga over is the hydrangea, I think, If they like hydrangeas, boy are they going to love viburnum!  I hope they do.

February To-Do List

1. Make rosemary cookies

2. Go to Garden Expo

3. Vacuum indoor houseplants with garage vac

4. Write hits and misses from 2016 for school garden and personal garden

5. Write more blog posts to share ideas with as many peeps as possible

6. Scour gardening catalogs and magazines–favorites: Jung’s, Seed Savers, Fine Gardening, Wisconsin Gardening, and domino

7. Plan MGG 2017–definitely will be planting more dinner plate dahlias in 2017

8. Buy potted hyacinths at Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s for instant happiness

9. Travel for ideas and inspiration: Chicago (Restoration Hardware);

Austin, Texas; and my favorite place in the whole wide world–Ironwood in Palm Desert, California

10. Take care of house projects to free up as much time as possible when snow melts. So far, I have painted my kitchen, family room, new room, upstairs bathroom ceiling, and halfway through upstairs bathroom cabinets and walls. I need to finish the upstairs bathroom and then on to painting the upstairs hallway and touching up kitchen cabinets that have chipped. I love painting almost as much as gardening, although I’m not as good at it.

11. Start pruning and cleaning up yard as much as our Wisconsin winter will allow 12. Continue to hose ice rink for kids in backyard–brrrr

13. Continue to get weekly bee shots to overcome this obstacle of a bee allergy that is interfering in my life

14. Enjoy every single minute because life is unpredictable!!!!

This year I hope to make it over to Garden Expo as much as possible in between kids’ basketball games and family weekend life.

I hope to catch the following classes:

On Friday at 3:30–Super Duper Annuals by Mark Dwyer of Rotary Botanical Gardens. I have been to many of Mark’s talks over the years and find his knowledge, talent, and taste to be superior. He is also a great public speaker. I really learn a lot and take home many ideas to implement in my clients’ planters and gardens. Then at 4:45, Innovations for Indoor Gardens.

I hope to wake up Saturday in time to make the 10:30 seminar, Starting and Maintaining a Thriving Organic Vegetable Garden by Joe Lamp’l from the TV show Growing a Greener World. I want to get ideas from this class for the school garden I help with as well as my Shorewood garden and backyard garden. Then after grabbing a cup of coffee and checking out the other part of Garden Expo, all of the vendors and plants, I plan to go to the 11:45 class, Create a Stunning Front Yard & Entryway for All to Enjoy, by Melinda Myers, in hopes of getting more fresh ideas for my clients’ homes and my own. Then on to Secrets Behind Creating the Perfect TV Garden at 1:00, again with Joe Lamp’l, because that is a life goal of mine–having my own TV gardening show. Hey, a girl can dream, right?!?!?? Then I’ll end the most perfect day with the 3:30 class, Color Theory in Garden Design by Benjamin Futa of Allen Centennial Garden. (Allen Centennial Garden is near and dear to my heart as I spend every Mother’s Day there with my family.)

I hope to head back to Garden Expo on Sunday at 2:00 to hear my former Master Gardener teacher, Lisa Johnson of UW-Extension Dane County, talk about growing tomatoes. I’d also really like to catch the 10:15 Gardening for Hummingbirds before Lisa’s class because I love hummingbirds. They remind me of Palm Desert, California, because I always see so many on our vacations there. Best. Vacations. Ever.

That’s how my garden seemed at the end of the 2015 season, with the creeping Charlie creeping in everywhere and the choking-vine weed choking everything.

But here is January, yielding a clean slate. Just as I have resolved to stop complaining and exercise five days a week and count my blessings every day, I feel grateful for my garden going dormant and also for the weeds and yellow-jacket wasps going dormant.

I’m loving my winter garden. I have lit up my evergreens and am going to embrace the Wisconsin winter by flooding my yard (with help from my dear old dad) to create an ice rink for my 2nd-grader, who still doesn’t know how to ice skate. Stay tuned for ice-rink updates!

So cheers to 2016 and being grateful for our hot messes, for this is our year to try new things–be it better attitudes, habits, or plants and flowers.

I hope I never stop growing.

After I did A, B, C, D, and E, I chose F, and following a positive blood test and a positive skin-allergy test that was so positive it required Benadryl and Zyrtec and then the EpiPen injection, I have started venom immunotherapy for my allergy to yellow-jacket wasps. They are the ones that look like bees, but are not so cute and fuzzy or nice. In fact, they are very aggressive. My current strategy is to have my weekly allergy shots so that I will no longer have this allergy and in the meantime to wear a fanny pack with my Benadryl and EpiPen. I’m still looking for the fanny pack, but Shopbop has some supercute ones. My strategy also includes using the buddy system when I garden. Luckily, I have gotten busy enough that I needed to hire several gardeners to help with my workload.

I am also revamping my garden. The Summer 2014 theme is Stunning Foliage. Yes, I will still have beautiful flowers, like my favorite lilies and monarda and hydrangea and Sungold indeterminate tomatoes, but I will take a break from my beloved cleomes and cosmos and purple asters. I’ll also get rid of one pear tree, and the pear tree that stays will get heavily pruned. Then I will add stunning coleus–fishnet stocking, Kong and others–and loads of elephant ears and ornamental grasses.

Cheers to what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!