The Work of the Winter Landscape

Snow is good for hardy plants. It serves as a source of protection, nourishment and even warmth (assuming it is not laden with street salt). Your plants are sleeping soundly and comfortably when blanketed in snow and you don't need to fret over them.

What is the gardener to do with the slow winter months? Rest, even as your plants do. The down time is just as important for the gardener as it is for the plants. It is akin to allowing some fields to go fallow for a year:

Farmers let fields lie fallow because it is one of the best ways to allow the land to replenish its nutrients and regain its fertility without resorting to the application of fertilizers. It also helps prevent erosion as the roots of the plants left to grow on the land help to hold the soil in place against the ravages of wind and rain. Sounds extremely important for farming doesn’t it? Sad thing is, farmers have so many demands on them that most don’t let fields lie fallow anymore, or at least find it difficult – and this in turn is slowly sapping the ground of all its cornucopian goodness.   (Cited from The Lattice Group) 

Read a book. Write a letter. Write a book. Read a letter. The winter time is a gift to the gardener and to everyone for undertaking the needed work on the interior landscape.