WHAT TO SAY ABOUT A YEAR that never really relented weather-wise? Well, maybe this: I’m exhausted, as is the garden. But even with insane precipitation and freakishly timed fall snowstorms followed by a too-warm early winter, I found lots of things to love among the many losses. Some highlights, and lowlights, in a giant new slideshow to close out the 2011 garden year.
Click on the first thumbnail to start the slides, then toggle from image to image using the arrow buttons on your keyboard (or the arrows beside each caption).
One last thought before you browse, however: Your visits to A Way to Garden were among the brightest spots of my year here, of course. Thanks for creating a garden community here with me since 2008, and my best to each of you, and to your gardens, in 2012.
Good morning Margaret, Thanks for creating a garden community that we all could come too, relax and enjoy the information, great photos, Andre Jordan and sometimes even a good laugh. Our best you, and to your gardens, in 2012.
Have a wonderful New Year,
John
Wonderful slideshow and commentary, Margaret. Thank you so much for sharing your garden and gardening life with us all year!
(Here in MN we have no snow and highs mostly in the 30s these days…yuck for us gardener/cross country skiers!)
What a wild year it’s been on this side of the Atlantic too, and I have no regrets whatsoever that it’ll be gone in exactly 7 and 1/2 hours from now. I started off 2011 with the word “optimism” and boy, did we need a lot of it to get through the ups and downs of the year! Thank you as ever for your ever-interesting blog (looking at your slide show, I can tell where I got inspiration from the blog), I am now looking forward to reading your next book, say Hi to Jack from my Tequila, and a very Happy New Year 2012!
Thank you so much for this beautiful slide show! I get such joy and inspiration from your blog. Happy New Year – whatever it may bring.
You are welcome, Elizabeth, and nice to see you. Thank to you — and all of you who have said hello already — for the good wishes.
Hi Margaret, thank you for this look back at 2011. I discovered your blog this summer and have been a loyal reader ever since. I just received a pretty snazzy camera for Christmas this year and I plan on documenting my 2012 garden in pictures like you do. Right now I’m enjoying a house full of amaryllis flowers and my hyacinths and tulips are well on their way.
I hope 2012 brings you lots of new garden adventures – please keep up the inspiring work!
Sarah
I enjoyed seeing your garden! Thank you for sharing it with me! Gardening is like that, always the good with the bad, hope and discouragement. Gardeners are usually hopeful, I find, as there is always next year to try again with something that didn’t work out this year.
Wow, love the ‘wildlife’ pictures – that’s quite a moth you have there. Do you know what it is? I also really enjoyed the pictures – I feel you can never have enough pictures – whatever did we do before digital cameras? Have a wonderful New Years, and all the best for 2012
Happy new year! Best of luck and great success with the new book. Can’t wait to read it.
Happy New Year to you also. What a wonderful way to begin the year with the slideshow of your gardens and our wild weather. Thanks for sharing. Now it’s time to hunker down with the seed and plant catalogs!
Happy New Year Margaret,
Looks like we’re starting out with another weather roller coaster. It is supposed to go into the 50′s today, New Year’s Day 2012 & in 2 days slip into the 20′s.
I’m hanging on for another wild ride.
…mary
Happy New Year!
Looking forward to another year of inspiration form you–garden and lifewise.
Great slideshow as usual. I think it would be of great interest to fans of your work to see a brief piece onyour garden photography, Maybe some pics of your camera and favorite lenses for specific uses and other pieces of kit, etc. Thanks and Happy New Year !
Hi Margaret, Happy New Year and Happy Gardening in 2012! I have been a visitor to your blog for almost a year now. You certainly give me great inspiration as I don’t have the energy that I once had to do the work I once did in my gardens; however, the passion still resonates deeply within. I remember the day that your e-mail came in October just after your second storm. I couldn’t believe the snowfall even though we had approx. 8 inches of the white stuff here on the east coast of Canada. Your picture looked like a scene in mid January. So sorry to hear of all your plant/property losses, but as gardeners we pick up the pieces and we say we now have prospective space for some new genus gems/species of plants we’ve been itching to add to our horticultural “must haves.”
Thanks for sharing your love for gardening!
Thank you all for your good wishes.
@DroughtSmartPlants: It’s a Cecropia moth.
@John: The scary thing is, I have no idea what I am doing since cameras became digital — it’s like shooting with a a computer! I actually sort of “got it” in the days of film! But a good suggestion, yes.
@Barb: Glad to start it off with a smile.
Happy New Year Margaret and All!
What a wonderful slide show, as always they inspire me to want to get out and try to make the garden better this year. I was out yesterday cutting back hellebore foliage (it works for me and does not damage any buds) and with this crazy weather I have a few in bloom. Not full bloom, but one or two flowers on the plants. I even have one fall supermarket plant (i think it may be a Niger) in full bloom!
Like others, I can’t wait to get my hands on your new book and to book a workshop once the event calendar is up.
What a way to start the new year. Lovely, inspring and informative slide show. Thanks Margaret for all you do for the world.
Happy New Year to All! What a year it was to come back to gardening! We too experienced some incredible weather here in Michigan. The pond behind us flooded our yard into mid-June, just barely sparing the new cottage garden. Eleven new dahlias rotted in the soggy ground and never saw the light of day. Bullfrogs on the lawn! But then the garden took off and thrilled us. Tiny tree frogs perching everywhere. Bumper crops of flowers, cukes, tomatoes, peppers, and all. Giant tobacco hornworms to be picked off, as with the Japanese beetles. But all in all, we were blessed with a wonderful garden where friend and foe were welcome alike. Thak you Margaret for inspiring the whole thing!!
Hi Margaret,
Happy New Year… and thank you for the wonderful gift of your slideshow.
I, too, am looking forward to your new book.
Thank you Margaret for your constant inspiration in the garden and in life. I am so glad I stumbled upon your website this year.
Have a wonderful New Year!
Dawn
Your slideshow really captured it all….the craziness and extremes of 2011 weather. The photos are are beautiful, as always, and I always look forward to seeing the progress and beauty of your gardens in 2012. Your blog is very inspirational…especially to a novice like me. Happy New Year, Margaret, and thank you for a wonderful blog!
Your slideshow really captured it all….the craziness and extremes of 2011 weather. The photos are are beautiful, as always, and I will look forward to seeing the progress and beauty of your gardens in 2012. Your blog is very inspirational…especially to a novice like me. Happy New Year, Margaret, and thank you for a wonderful blog!
Oops…sorry for the double post. I thought the first one didn’t go through.
Thanks for answering my question, Margaret. I think there are some of those around here, but unless I get really motivated, I rarely see them. I’ve seen Sphinx moths (which look similar) if I forget to turn off the outside light, then there they are in the morning, sleeping.
Happy New Year, everyone.
Margaret,
Have a very happy 2012!
Thank you for your blog which for me is a place to learn from you and the comments, and a place where I can marvel at the most gorgeous pictures.
Best of luck with a new book!
Happy New Year Margaret,
Last night I attended a “burning bowl” service. On a piece of paper, you write down those things that you wish to leave behind in 2011 and then burn your list in the bonfire. I wrote down “impatience”. The second half of the service, you write down those things you wish for in 2012. I wrote down “patience”. Patience in dealing with the weather, which destroyed my gardens and yard this past year, so this year I can learn to just go with the flow more and not to take it so personal. It was so difficult and still is to see everything that I had worked on in my yard for the last twenty-four years be destroyed in one night during the October storm. Although without power for eight days, there were no injuries, my house was not damaged and I still had a roof over my head unlike thousands in Japan this past year. I was actually very fortunate. So my word for this year is “patience”. I’ll know how my gardens and I are doing because my list for 2012 will be mailed to me in July so I can think about my progress so far for the year.
Again Happy New Year and good luck with finishing your book!
Gary (MB)
Thanks to all the latest commenters, and welcome to Marilyn and Dawn — it looks on my dashboard that this might be your first comments (but that could be wrong!). Nice to “see” you all today.
Wonderful slide show, thanks for the inspiration. I too am thankful for the garden community you have created, i enjoy reading everyones comments. Thanks for sharing your plans for the new year. I made my own list for 2012 this morning.
Good luck to you Margaret and the rest of your community in 2012, wishing you lots of time in your gardens what ever the weather.
I just finished reading And I Shall Have Some Peace There and loved seeing the frogs, Jack the cat, your garden and you. Thanks for sharing your gardening year in images. Looking forward to more in 2012.
Am currently enjoying reading “And I shall have some peace”. I love your wit and brutally honest account of finding your way. I, too, am mid fifties, an avid gardener, and currently assessing what it is I am here on earth to do. With that, I thought i would check out your blog. Thank you for the beautiful photos of your world!
It’s been a while since I visited and I’m glad I did – looking at your pictures made me want to come back for more, which I will.
Happy New Year
Thanks for sharing your photos- I love looking at them. The spring shot with the apple trees and lilacs is SO pretty! Let’s hope 2012 is a nicer weather year for all of us!
Margaret…Beautiful slideshow! I have to do that for my gardens and I never do.I have really enjoyed your newsletter. Gardening gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling. I live in Michigan in the coastal town of Ludington…..I had some challenges with all the wind. I also have very sandy soil which I have been working on for 9 years.Happy New Year.
Thank you, Margaret….beautiful and inspirational! Warm in southcentral PA, as well. Planted bulbs yesterday in warm, wet soil. The freeze starts tomorrow, finally.
Thanks, Cindy, for the heads-up that you are reading the book, and the kind words.
Kathy, so nice to hear from you. Gardening gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling, too. :)
Thanks for the pictures Margaret-I love the garden gates and peaches YUM! oh and a gorgeous, velvety-soft Cecropia! All the Best to you and your gardens in the new year.
I discovered awaytogarden.com in mid-2011 by way of yougrowgirl.com and am so glad I did. I love all the slideshows and posts. They give me tons of inspiration and the photos are just so gorgeous. I look forward to visiting this site on a very regular basis in 2012!
Happy New Year, Margaret! Thanks for the awesome slideshow.
I was really happy to hear the news of your upcoming book! The thought of another treasure from you made my day.
THANK YOU, Margaret. Your website and comments/info/observations are soooo very interesting and helpful. I really love it “here.”
HAPPY NEW YEAR
Thank you for your beautiful blog. I loved the photos of your garden in 2011. What drama, from the weather to the froggies. Blessings and peace in 2012!
Thanks, Christine. A funny year. (Lately they all seem funny, huh?) See you lots in 2012 I hope.
Margaret — what a fabulous slideshow — cheers me on my pending escape from zone 5b (Sharon, CT) to 8b (Portland, OR) and my new garden.
What a great set of photos! I enjoy peeking in from time to time to see what you have to say, but this time… you nearly let the pictures do all the talking (according to my simple math your pictures spoke about 44,000 words)!
Here’s hoping 2012 is a little better to all of us,
Tim in Portland
Margaret,
I am so grateful for your posts. I don’t always get to read them, but when I do, I am rewarded with the humor, beauty, and great information you post.
2011 was a year of my husband’s recurrence of cancer, almost a full year of treatment. I had to let go of much, including many of my garden duties. It forgave me, as it tends to do and still gives pleasure even in the face of my neglect.
But your posts give inspiration and encouragement for the next season of growth. Thank you.
Hi Margaret,
Loved the slide show. Here in Florida we are still gardening. I love seeing all the beautiful plants you grow. When I lived in N.Y I loved growing clematis. It is such a beautiful vine. Here in Fl. Gardening is a bit different, but I still enjoy it. Happy New Year to you. Keep the photos coming.thanks