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About
Ideally, our gardens should feed our souls and give pleasure 365 days a year, although somehow the warm seasons zip by, while winter seems to come too soon, stay too long, and offer too few sensory pleasures. But when you quit grumbling about crummy weather and dark days and look around, much unexpected beauty awaits. Explore the transition from fall to spring and the many possibilities for garden interest way past first frost.
We will consider form, line, color, texture, plays of light and shadow, movement, sound, birds, surprises you find when you drag yourself out of the comfy fireside chair and go outdoors. Big structures carry the garden when details are buried under snow or it’s too gloomy to go out—you can see them from a distance. Evergreens provide color and form, deciduous trees and shrubs create form with lines. Seedheads and pods lend punctuation and texture, and many herbaceous plants—Karen calls them her foul weather friends—persist well into winter, so the garden still looks like a garden if you use enough of them. Consider trees and shrubs with colored and textured barks, those with interesting buds and winter blooms. Before you know it, early bulbs will be pushing up.
This talk is guaranteed to inspire gardeners to appreciate winter in new ways—and to place combinations of interesting plants where they will be seen and enjoyed through the unsung season.
Karen Bussolini is a lifelong hands-on organic gardener and lover of nature. Trained as a painter and well-schooled in the art of seeing, her garden photography, talks, and writing reflect the world through her artist’s eye. She photographed six books, including The Homeowner’s Complete Tree and Shrub Handbook, The Naturescaping Workbook: A Step-by-Step Guide for Bringing Nature to Your Backyard, and Elegant Silvers, which she also co-authored. Karen’s photo-rich talks have people laughing and learning from coast to coast. Although she travels far and wide, her roots are sunk deeply into the soil of a deer-infested mountainside in South Kent, Connecticut.
HAH members will receive the Zoom link via email. Non-members can register to receive the link for $10 at hahgarden.org/tickets
