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Check this section for Julie's seasonal views of the gardening process.
 Fall Retrospective>Midwesterners in general and gardeners in particular are profoundly unsettled by good fortune.
> Full essay
Loved and Lost>Ask any number of Minnesota gardeners what they think about last winter, and we're firmly of one mind: It was awful, just awful.
> Full essay
Playing in the Dirt> Early spring gives the gardener license to savor an atavistic, earthbound ritual that may have been lost to many who toil in cubicles and rarely soil their hands.> Full essay
 Heralding April>Spring, under the best of circumstances, is a fits-and-starts affair, but I still appreciate April in all its messy ambiguity.> Full essay
Creaky Springs> Over the years I've come to realize that the change of seasons is fraught with risk-especially when the seasons change overnight as they just did.
Bones > Serious garden writers devote long, windy chapters to bones the basic structure of a site as defined by its underpinnings and outcroppings and their implications for landscape design.
This essay was adapted from a column published in The Pilot Independent (Walker) in the spring of 1997 just after we had bought the property that is now Willow Fen.> Full essay
Februweary > Cranky and obstreperous, little February is neither cute nor funny. Flatly ignoring social cues, our second month stomps around pitching fits and wearing out its welcome in a matter of hours.> Full essay
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Comfort Plants > If you were to choose a few shrubs and perennials to place in your garden solely for their ability to soothe the spirit and evoke a sense of nostalgia, what plants would you consider essential?> Full essay
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 Collections > Scanning a gardener's journal would probably be less revealing than a leisurely tour of garden and tool shed. The story of a gardener's life is writ large in the plants, accessories, and tools we gather around us. > Full essay
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November Reflections > I'm going to miss the ripples. Williams Lake yawns gusts of fog each morning as it prepares for several months of slumber. Surroundings -- doubled by lake reflections -- will seem diminished soon, so I seek chores that take me near windows for the last, bittersweet glimpses. I admire the stand of balsams around the little bay across from us and store their squiggly reflections among favorite seasonal memories. > Full essay
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Potting Shed > Finding a house that excited envy among our friends proved satisfying in ways I blush to acknowledge, but in fact I fell in love with the derelict barnlet tucked into a pine grove on the east edge of the lot. With its story-book gambrel roof and little pair of genuine four-pane windows (no ersatz mullions there), it spoke directly to my gardening soul. "Potting shed," it murmured seductively. "Potting shed. Potting shed." > Full essay
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Oh, Deer! > In current parlance, one is exhorted to own one's issues (formerly known as personal problems or shortcomings) and, by extension, deal with them in a constructive manner especially if they impair relationships. So, here it is, friends: I own a big -- make that huge -- Bambi complex that threatens my relationship with tulips, hostas, daylilies, roses... > Full essay
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