Of Persistant Leaves and Seeds

I like to leave some of the summer perennials standing for the winter. The birds continue eating the seeds, of course, but beyond that I think they add interest to the yard when the snow covers everything and could make for a plain white tableau were it not for the standing structures. Some things don't hold up, but the cone flowers and most of the grasses retain their beauty until spring. And for some reason it seems to be much less work to cut it all down in the spring than it would be in the fall. Perhaps just because there is no fear of loss.

When Mom died a year and a half ago, each of her daughters and her nephew planted a tree in our yards as a remembrance. Tom actually planted two, one for his Mom Jean, Dottie's sister. We chose different types of trees. Mine is a Japanese Maple. I made sure to choose a type that was hardy to at least zone 4, not wanting the tree to be taken by our cold winters here.


Mom's tree retains its leaves well into the winter - they haven't fallen yet. I don't remember it hanging on like this last winter, and maybe it is just part of the same phenomenon that kept the leaves on all of the local trees much longer this year than usual. (My friend in the City's public works department says that they didn't even get close to cleaning up all of the leaves in the gutters before the snow fell this year, and now they will stay until spring.) It reminds me of Mom herself - not wanting to part with her favorite embellishments - clinging to the knitted lap robe her friend Marian made for her wherever she went.