Winter Gardens of the Mind: Memory, Imagination, and Hidden Bloom

January 15, 2020

On this day, let us celebrate the quiet magic of winter gardens and the vital role that imagination and memory play in sustaining a gardener’s heart through the cold months.

Between December and March, for many of us, the garden exists in three wondrous forms: the garden outdoors, the garden of pots and bowls within the home, and most enchantingly, the garden of the mind’s eye.

As the wise garden author Katherine S. White mused,

From December to March, there are for many of us three gardens -
the garden outdoors,
the garden of pots and bowls in the house,
and the garden of the mind's eye.

This trifecta reminds us that the gardener’s labor does not simply pause with frost’s arrival; rather, it shifts, dwelling temporarily in memory and dream.

The imagination becomes an essential tool—tending to bulbs yet to bloom, replaying sun-dappled days, and nurturing hope for warmer ones ahead.

The American poet and storyteller Celia Thaxter beautifully captures this tender balance between care and dreaming as she prepares to tuck her roses and lilies away for their winter slumber:

Soon will set in the fitful weather,
with fierce gales and sullen skies and frosty air,
and it will be time to tuck up safely my roses and lilies
and the rest for their winter sleep beneath the snow,
where I never forget them,
but ever dream of their wakening in happy summers yet to be.

This winter sleep, cloaked beneath snow, is not an end but a pause filled with promise and the vivid anticipation of renewal.

The sentiment is echoed by Dr. Charles Garfield Stater, whose poetic voice observes that every seemingly lifeless winter tree harbors the secret of summer deep within its very heart:

Of winter's lifeless world each tree
Now seems a perfect part;
Yet each one holds summer's secret
Deep down within its heart.

Such imagery invites gardeners to see beyond the surface frost and snow, to behold the secret life of their cherished plants and to trust in nature’s cyclical wisdom.

Then there is Allen Lacy, who remarks that gardeners possess a unique vision—one that travels through time, joining the present moment with vivid memory and future hope:

Gardeners, like everyone else, live second by second and minute by minute.

What we see at one particular moment is then and there before us.

But there is a second way of seeing.

Seeing with the eye of memory, not the eye of our anatomy, calls up days and seasons past, and years gone by.

Indeed, winter invites us to cultivate our inner gardens as much as the outward ones.

The charming verse of Cynthia Adams in Winter Garden perfectly captures this spirit of mental cultivation, where the stark white of snow is transformed by the eye of imagination into a lush, blooming sanctuary:

In winter's cold and sparkling snow,
The garden in my mind does grow.

I look outside to blinding white,
And see my tulips blooming bright.

And over there a sweet carnation,
Softly scents my imagination.

On this cold and freezing day,
The Russian sage does gently sway,

And miniature roses perfume the air,
I can see them blooming there.

Though days are short, my vision's clear.
And through the snow, the buds appear.

In my mind, clematis climbs,
And morning glories do entwine.

Woodland phlox and scarlet pinks,
Replace the frost, if I just blink.

My inner eye sees past the snow.
And in my mind, my garden grows.

Dear gardeners, when the wintry world outside is quiet and all seems still, remember that your garden thrives in your imagination and memory.

It is a place where the seeds of longing, hope, and creativity blossom year-round.

This inner garden, alongside pots on the windowsill and the frost-covered earth, keeps the pulse of the growing season alive until the earth reawakens once more.