December.
November and December are two most important months in the gardening year. All the digging and the alterations you have planned during the summer are taken in hand now. In a cold climate you would be careful to finish your planting early in November, but in the South and West of England you might still be busy with a new rockery or a new flower border. Even in the South you must now expect winter weather, and should complete your preparations for protecting delicate plants. One of the enchanting discoveries you make when you become a gardener is that there is no ‘dead’ season in these islands. In the milder corners you may have Roses, Violets, and Primroses all through the winter, while the early spring bulbs push their spikes through the soil before you have gathered your last Chrysanthemum. But even in a cold climate, when all your plants seem to be asleep beneath the snow, you can be busy indoors for your garden. It is a good plan to make plenty of large wooden labels, as the little ones you buy are easily lost. If you have the use of a shed or an attic, you may wish to repaint your watering-can and wheelbarrow; and out of doors you can sort all your stakes, and point those used for Sweet-peas with a sharp, strong knife. Besides, you will probably have some bulbs and foliage plants indoors that require your care.
If you have any Christmas Roses (Hellebores) in your garden, it is well worth while to make a roof over them with strong stakes and sacking. Then the air can get in at the sides, but the roof prevents the rough winter rains from splashing their faces with soil. When Christmas is over you have January, the worst of the winter months, before you, and after that you will say to yourself every day that ‘spring is coming.’ Even during a cold February the lengthening afternoon lights say this to you a little clearer every week, and during the spell of mild weather that nearly every February brings you will find many other promises of spring in your garden. So the year goes round for us, a tangled tale of work and pleasure, success and failure, hope and disappointment. The great gardener must be wise and humble, or he would not be great; so he knows to the end of his days that he has much to learn. The child who first plants his little plot should also teach himself this lesson. Then, if he observes his plants attentively and patiently, he will in the course of years become a gardener.
‘Who loves a garden
Still his Eden keeps,
Perennial pleasures plants,
And wholesome harvests reaps.’