Happy new gardening year friends January is the month when gardeners either (1) declare themselves “behind,” or (2) declare themselves “done.” I’d like to offer a third option: you’re not behind, you’re just in winter.
If you need proof, take a slow walk around the block. Not a power walk. A “notice things you usually ignore” walk. The kind where you stop at a front yard for ten seconds and feel slightly nosy. In our area, Glenside, Abington, Jenkintown, Roslyn, Wyncote, winter gardens don’t look like magazine spreads. They look like sticks, leaves, and seed heads. Which is perfect, because that’s exactly what nature needs right now.
On a walk this week I noticed something I never paid attention to before: a clump of ornamental grass left standing in a small front bed was basically a tiny apartment building. The stems were bent but not broken, and the base was packed with leaf bits. It looked messy in the way a winter coat looks messy, because it’s doing its job.
So, if you’re staring out the window thinking your garden is “doing nothing,” here are a few things it’s quietly working away on.
1. Hosting winter wildlife
Seed heads aren’t just dead flowers. They’re a pantry. A perch. A windbreak. A place to hide.
If you have coneflowers, black-eyed Susans, goldenrod, grasses, or even a scruffy patch of “I’ll deal with it later,” you’ve built a winter rest stop. Birds pick at seeds. Small creatures look for cover. Insects tuck themselves into stems and leaf litter like they’re checking into a hotel with very flexible checkout times.
“Tidy” is not the same as “healthy.” Winter is not the season for perfection; with these cold temperatures it’s the season for shelter!
Leaf and wood piles like this in winter provide so much habitat for insects and small mammals
A red cardinal on snowy branches outside my window
2. Your soil is working under the surface
Even when the ground looks asleep, it’s still running the slow, important processes that make spring possible. Leaves break down. Microbes do their invisible work. Water moves. Air pockets shift.
You don’t have to “fix” everything in January. If you want one simple soil-friendly move, it’s this: leave organic material in place. Not everywhere. Just somewhere. A corner. A bed. Under shrubs.
3. Your neighborhood’s “microclimates”
In our area you can walk three blocks and see three different gardens: sunny front-yard beds, shady canopies, windy corners, protected courtyards. Winter makes these differences obvious.
Notice which patches of snow melt first. Which spots stay icy. Which front steps get sun. Which side yards never do. That’s not just weather trivia, that’s planting information for the spring and summer.
4. Spring is already forming
Look closely and you’ll see it: buds on shrubs. Tight little tips on trees. Perennials sleeping under mulch and leaves. Spring is not a switch that flips in April, even though it feels like it when everything bursts out. It’s a long process that starts way earlier than we give it credit for.
Neighborhood Notes
I’m trying something new this year: Neighborhood Notes, a dedicated space for reader voices and real-life gardening stories from around our community. Have a winter observation, a question, or a “what is this plant doing?” moment? Email it to dearmediocregardener@gmail.com or DM me on Instagram @themediocregardener, and I’ll share as many as I can each month.
The Mediocre Gardener takeaway
Winter gardening is mostly not doing. But it’s not nothing.
It’s letting the garden hold shelter. Letting the soil stay covered. Letting yourself observe instead of fix. And using a walk around the block to remind you that the goal isn’t a perfect yard, it’s a living one.
So, if your January plan is to look out the window, drink something warm, and let your garden be a little messy… congratulations. You’re nailing it!
Yours in mediocrity, Edel
For more of The Mediocre Gardener’s column with Glenside Local, you can click here. For more on Primex Garden Center of Glenside, you can visit their website and Facebook page.
For all the latest news, follow us on Facebook or sign up for Glenside Local’s “Daily Buzz” newsletter here.
Photos: Edel Howlin
Comments are closed.