But it is now, when the garden is most asleep, that the rhythm of the gardening year slows sufficiently for gardeners to pause and ponder their resolutions for the coming season. As I tend to rebel against resolutions, even ones I make myself, I try merely to nudge myself in the right direction. So I plan in the coming year to prune and divide more than I plant, to save more plant tags than I toss, and to spend more time weeding than plant shopping. Seeking inspiration, I spoke with some of the gardeners I most admire about their resolutions for 2001.
Patience is a fine virtue for a gardener.
You'd expect Joan Hockaday, seminar coordinator for the Northwest Flower and Garden Show, to be too frantic with show preparations to turn her thoughts to next season, but like all gardeners, she can't help but plan ahead. Hockaday plans to repaint her green picket fence, trim back all the dead fern fronds in her front garden, and pick the hips off the rugosa roses before they turn to mush. After the sale of Heronswood Nursery, Dan Hinkley is setting off to make a new garden. He has learned, as have we all, that it takes more than a cooperative climate to make an artful garden. Actually, quilt would be glorifying the hodgepodge.