Over Winter

Over Winter.

As in, I am utterly & totally over, the winter.

I could have sworn the weather persons were talking 40+ degrees for us, for now...

but instead, it's been cold, and snowy, and rainy, and windy...

Winter, in Minnesota if you will.

I know I don't have a right to complain, we choose to live here...

but, 

I'm over it.

Seems like forever ago, we headed south to escape for a bit...

I'm looking forward to spring...

more so this year, than in any year I can remember in recent past...

Last fall, in a rush to get things done right around first frost time - 

I quickly pulled up my geraniums that I had planted in whiskey barrels and tossed them into a discarded cardboard box...

I know there are rules to overwintering plants here in the frozen tundra - 

I've even attempted that before ...

This time however, I just tossed them into that open cardboard box - 

With the intention of properly overwintering them...

(in a brown paper sack, in a cool dry place, taking them out from time to time and soaking the roots)

WELP! 

I never got around to it - 

The other day, I took out that open box of dead looking plants tucked in the corner of our unfinished laundry room - (Why my hubs didn't just toss them out months ago is beyond me!! Thank you babe!)

And I gave them a little splash of water - 

Put the box in front of my patio door, willing the sun to shine for just a day....

And wouldn't you know it...

If there isn't some life springing up around here!

It gives me hope to know that even on the darkest of days, the gloomiest of winters...

This too, shall pass...

That amongst the long, cold, and even the dead...

We will find the bright spot again...

We will come out of this funk, ready to be awakened of all the newness that spring promises us.

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totally tubular....

I have been loving figuring out how to garden - what grows well, what blooms when, what works and what just doesn't...

Early in the spring I bought some tubers from the girl next door - a fundraiser...
$20 got me 3 Dahlia tubers, or bulbs, or whatever it is you might call them....

I'll admit - I was convinced I was just donating the $20 - I did not think they would bloom, much less bloom so beautifully and overtake the entire front of my garden...some of them were 5 & 6 feet tall!


But now, even though we've had a remarkable fall with awesomesauce weather...
It's time to prepare the gardens for snow...

And that means...well, that means that if you don't dig up the Dahlia tubers...they most likely won't come back here in Zone 4...

Yikes.
I'm brand new to this...
I did over winter my geraniums last year with success...so how hard can this be right?
I got a lot of varying information via the internet but found what seemed somewhat simple and ran with it...

I can tell you one thing...
What you see below is NOT what I planted...I planted three average to large sized bulby things...

These things have gone hog wild...

And quite frankly, look a little...

disturbing and gross...

But...I've packed them in some peat moss and will tuck them away in our crawl space...

AKA, a cool dark space...

And we'll see what new life we can find in the springtime...