Snow moon garden

By WILL CONWAY

Look at the flowers—for no reason. It is simply unbelievable how happy flowers are.

—Osho

In snow season, our gardens rest. They move into a dreamtime with us, where hopes for growing things flourish. The phrase, “next year will be better” hums like a mantra. In our real gardens, roots continue to expand, growing quietly below the cold surface. Beyond planning the exuberance of next year’s garden in our imagination, we tend and celebrate the potted garden we have gingerly lugged inside for the winter.

Research in psychology suggests that having flowers in the home uplifts our mood. The study finds that seeing a flower first thing in the morning on a kitchen table can give one’s feelings a boost. The boost not only lasts, it can be contagious. The Home Ecology Course at Harvard uncovered three new findings. First, in less than a week of living with flowers, students felt an increase in feelings of compassion and kindness toward others. Second, subjects expressed feeling less negative, and a desire to see the blooms the next day. Third, people proved more likely to feel happy and energized, and enthusiastic at work by having flowers in the home environment.

This good news bolsters the wisdom of the last-minute decision to dig up and pot clusters of geraniums, right before a frost. I am glad I rescued these nursery stragglers before they were composted, because white, coral, pink and red petals are now unfolding under kitchen light.

I heel in a group of potted perennials for the winter with a mound of root-protecting woodchips. While foraging in the vegetable garden, I am surprised by an overlooked Delicata squash, which I pick and steam for supper with snips of sweet red cabbage leaves. I’m delighted to come across late blooms of yellow-faced violas and periwinkle creeping myrtle. I prune overgrowth of wisteria and rambler rose.

A windfall for the garden occurs when a windstorm liberates a huge section of white pine from its main trunk. I’m thankful for the avalanche of springy green mulch and firewood. My wife and I gather up a few of the sweetly pungent and sticky boughs for decorating the porch.

Indoors, a cheery jungle of houseplants vies for available light. Amid orchid and philodendron leaves, coral-pink trumpets of fuchsia dangle. White star-shaped flowers of spider plants dot ends of arching stems. After two years of care, a Christmas cactus cutting is showing a riot of pink blooms. During the holiday season, we string colored lights on a grapefruit tree that I planted from seed years ago.

The power of petals to chase winter blues is enough to encourage forcing a few paper-whites or starting an amaryllis bulb. Innate beauty and order in nature, in the simple form of a flower, seems to connect us with our humanness, through our interconnectedness with other living things. We are grateful for flowers on special occasions as they mark the milestones of our lives. With the healing embrace of flowers in the house, I welcome the sense of security.

Now that their leaves have gone, winterberry reds dot the landscape. Reds of barberry, holly and dogwood shoots complement the bright berries. Blues and greens of evergreen soften monochromatic winter views. This winter, other than gazing at picturesque frosty scenes from my window, I’ll be thrilled each time an indoor bloom appears.