Sometimes you just have to say forgeddaboutit! and garden.

Luckily, I live in Victoria, the Caribbean of Canada, where the temperature hovered around 10°C today. Along with the pause in the rain, that’s all the excuse I needed to escape the unfinished studio/garage reno for another day.

Just ten days into January nature is reawakening. Anna’s hummingbirds (who stick around all winter) buzzed me and cheeky northern flickers squawked from the suet feeder on the balcony as I tidied the little lot we’ve transformed over the last 18 months into another urban oasis, complete with burbling waterfall. The project has come a long way since last winter — a reminder, just when I need it, that patience and persistence eventually bear fruit.

And buds are ripening on endemic Pacific nine bark, flowering currant and Indian plum, which we finally got in the ground last year. The latter is a harbinger of spring in these parts, along with the crimson-petalled currant, which is still holding on to a few of last season’s leaves. Again this year, the snowdrops have decided “To hell with spring, let’s get prettied up now!”

I’m pleased with how well introduced mosses, collected from our shady driveway and nearby forest, have established around the banks of the water feature. Some have even sprouted ferns, adding to the native deer and liquorice ferns we bought from Russel Nursery last spring. If you’re looking for native species on Vancouver Island, that’s the place to go.

Like the snowdrops, I can’t wait for spring to arrive — maybe I’ll have the studio finished by then! — to see all the plants we put in last year, not to mention the big 40-year-old mock orange (also endemic to BC), sporting new growth and blossoms. In the meantime, here’s a winter garden tour: