Pick a gardening topic-lysimachia, for instance-gather a roomful of gardeners (two would suffice), ask them to expound, and you will have more opinions than you can possibly assimilate on everything from how to pronounce it to which members of the family should be welcomed into polite society. Ask any number of Minnesota gardeners what they think about last winter, however, and we're firmly of one mind: It was awful, just awful. The season didn't feel so bad going by, but it was ominously open, and we recognized multi-layered trouble when 90% of the septic systems in this area froze in March. Preoccupied with compelling household concerns, we postponed agonizing about the garden implications until reality grew ever more insistent in April, May, and June. Call it what you like: spring giddiness or plain denial, we surfed along on hope until we could no longer refute the stark evidence. Acknowledged losses mounted: daffodils, lamb's ears, lavender, ajuga, coreopsis, chrysanthemums, and clematis.

I learned to appreciate definitive demise as I struggled to develop a policy toward the living dead: roses, a corkscrew willow, a choice Japanese shrub willow, several varieties of flowering plums, and (worst of all) a strategically-located balsam that produced a lovely hem of new growth that gave way to progressively stressed tiers of branches ranging upward from sage to rust. A friend, well informed about native trees, holds little hope for the ailing balsam that he says suffers from a nutrient transport problem with no discernible cause. We'll wait until the resident robin raises her brood and then remove the doomed tree.

After much thought and a decent period of mourning, I gave up on roses-well, almost. Even a conservative cost-benefit analysis would lead the sensible northern gardener to conclude that some roses are simply not worth the effort. Although I've never tinkered with tea roses, I have lost my heart to some of the iffier shrub varieties. Now I'm ready to settle for the genuine stalwarts: Belle Poitevine, Therese Bugnet, Pink Pavement, Pink Pillar, and Lillian Gibson. While even these varieties require a bit of cosseting, they pay the rent with lavish blooms and generally sunny dispositions.

The willows fall into a murkier zone because, despite significant esthetic compromise, you can't keep a good willow down, and, besides, we do call this place Willow Fen. Failing to recognize the need to wrap the trunk of a fenside Prairie Cascade willow several years ago, I've had a gnarly reminder of my ignorance ever since. Now I am chastened for my envelope-pushing tendencies by the specimens that struggle to generate new growth from surviving roots. The corkscrew willow, in particular, has been sending a strong message for several years, but I am sufficiently attached to those whirligig branches that I refuse to listen. One year a few sturdy-looking shoots simply keeled over in midsummer, leaving a small clutch of brethren clinging to life. The following year, winter claimed a strong central trunk that I chose to regard as a sculptural support for a new clematis. You've already guessed where that folly led. A bamboo teepee will hold the clematis until this year's three spindly shoots validate my hopes for them.

Despite some efforts to coddle, buttress, and forgive esthetic flaws, I often welcome the opportunity to cut my losses and redesign an area that winter leaves bereft. The best gardens are welcoming outdoor rooms. However cozy and familiar these rooms become, they do require extensive spring cleaning and now and then we need to summon the courage to renovate or replace a timeworn piece of furniture.