Garden Catalogues

Last night we had another inch or so of snow here in Des Moines. Not enough to shovel nor enough to hide the ice on our driveway. After near-record amounts of snow and a rare rain storm in January, most Midwesterners are ready for spring. Another two or three months of winter weather ahead of me lower my tolerance of snow-appreciation. So last week when my first garden catalogue arrived it was easy to mark off dozens of perennials and annuals and plan where to add them in the garden. My big discoveries last year were how long asters last in the fall and how catmint sprawls to cover even some patches of creeping charlie. For today I will content myself by watching patches of snow fall from our Maple and noting rabbit and squirrel tracks in the new layer of ground snow.