Cold snap

Winter Fairy

Alla Tsank

The air is suddenly cold and dry without a cloud in the sky. We're starting a stretch of clear, beautiful weather that might take us right through Thanksgiving weekend, which is unusual for the wettest month of the year in Seattle.  The temperature is only 31 this morning-- the coldest since last March.

Now is the yearly dilemma of deciding what plants to save. I brought the Donkey Tail pots inside and a couple of houseplants, but decided no heroics this winter on all that other stuff.  Usually I pile pots in the basement stairwell, then fuss and fret and cover everything with a fleece blanket each time it gets below freezing.  This gets old.  Or maybe I'm getting old? I can always buy new jasmines in the spring.  Besides, I made a vow not to plant up so many pots and baskets with annuals next year.  All that watering! Remind me of that resolution when April comes around.

The old fig tree is in its ugly, leafless stage until May.  Cleaning up the rotting day lilies and tree shoots underneath is a nasty, once-a-year job, but at least the sun is out today.  This tree was good sized 35 years ago when we moved here. I googled it, and apparently figs can live for hundreds of years. There are strangler figs in the jungle that are over 500 years old!


For all its longevity, our fig has only done two useful things-- it once held a tree house that Amanda, "Cowboy" and "Puss" liked to hang out in, and now it shades the bonsai plants in the summer.
Once again, it is covered with thousands of green figs that didn't ripen, not even in the warmest, driest Seattle summer on record.   Nope, bringing them in the house doesn't work.