Deep into this pandemic winter, it can be hard to remember what a refuge gardens were last spring and summer.
In those frightening early days of COVID-19, victory gardens and household vegetable plots sprang up all over. Seed companies reported shortages. Hardware stores saw a run on garden tools. Millions found comfort, release and a sense of safety outdoors with their hands in the dirt.
That feels like a long time ago. We dreaded this winter, and we weren’t wrong: January was the deadliest month yet from the virus. Political violence shook Americans’ sense of security and shared purpose. Businesses and household incomes are struggling. And the human interactions that might help us process all this anxiety and grief are discouraged.
Yet the garden is still there, hunkering down too. And it can still help. Even in winter, it can provide solace, inspiration and perspective. Fresh air. And an assurance that spring is coming.
“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,” Katherine S. White, an editor and writer at The New Yorker and an avid gardener, wrote several decades ago.
As we round the bend into February, and with the hope that vaccines will bring real change, all three of those gardens offer a promise of light.
THE GARDEN OUTDOORS
To the eye, there’s little in a winter garden that can compare to spring and summer’s binge-worthy drama of growing, blooming and buzzing. Only the most serious gardeners (or those in warmer climates) can keep the growing going outside, using cold frames, fabric or plastic tunnels, and other techniques.
But there are smaller joys to be had. The trees’ bare branches make for beautiful silhouettes, and better views of birds and sunsets. Landscape photographer Larry Lederman, author of the recent book “Garden Portraits,” recommends getting to know your garden better in the winter, when “everything is bare and you can see the bones of the landscape.”
More significantly, gardens remind us that winter is just one season in a cycle. Death is everywhere in a garden, all year round, but it makes rebirth possible. The species keep going.
“The return of spring each year can be endlessly relied on, and in (plants) not dying when we die, we have a sense of goodness going forward,” Sue Stratis-Smith writes in her new book, “The Well-Gardened Mind: The Restorative Power of Nature.”
“This,” she says, “is the garden’s most enduring consolation.’’
Of course, the constancy of the seasons these days can’t be taken for granted as in the past. So winter is also a good time for reevaluating our own yard-size battles against climate change. We can start or continue composting. And we can research services, products and methods to help make next year’s garden — and those beyond — more sustainable. 
THE GARDEN INDOORS
Houseplants are hot now, and Instagram is full of plant influencers posting photos.
