{"id":9691,"date":"2015-01-28T17:55:54","date_gmt":"2015-01-28T17:55:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.siteandinsight.com\/?p=1692"},"modified":"2015-01-28T17:55:54","modified_gmt":"2015-01-28T17:55:54","slug":"the-colour-of-winter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/fr\/the-colour-of-winter\/","title":{"rendered":"The Colour of Winter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week’s post titled ‘Winter Interest’ sparked a critical comment from Anne Wareham, a reader in Wales who is\u00a0editor of the on-line site ThinkinGardens. \u00a0Using the word ‘interest’ to describe anything in a garden, she wrote, \u00ab\u00a0seems so very odd and hardly apposite really.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n

I agree. Interest is one of those lazy words we use when nothing more precise occurs — or when our own thoughts are so muddy that precision is difficult. What does ‘winter interest’ mean, after all? It can’t be an attempt to reproduce\u00a0the\u00a0colour of summer flowers,\u00a0or the brilliance of autumn leaves or the heady promise of spring green.<\/p>\n

So I ask you: what words can we use to describe the subtle beauty of a winter landscape where colour is limited? Grey and white are there, along with black and white, dark green and white and, on sunny days, brilliant\u00a0blue and white. But white predominates.\u00a0Always.<\/p>\n

To my eyes, few things can rival its beauty. When the sun shines, and this is frequently the case in my part of the world, sparkling white snow gives off\u00a0every colour of the rainbow. It hides the dullness beneath: dead grass, untended borders full of matted leaves and mud waiting to appear.<\/p>\n

Even so, white loses its appeal when it is all you see.<\/p>\n

So I particularly liked these green doors positioned on a hillside in a small garden in Ottawa that add colour to an\u00a0otherwise bland winter view.\u00a0They bring a note of mystery and intrigue: what might I find if I opened those doors and walked through?<\/p>\n

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As it turns out, these doors were on an old garage that the owners removed. So if I had gone through them \u00a0in their previous incarnation, I might\u00a0have found myself next to a Model T Ford. I prefer to imagine a more magical world.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Winter lasts a long time in Quebec, and interesting sights\u00a0in the garden help to ward off visual boredom. The view from from my kitchen window is a daily delight: boxwood barely poking its\u00a0head above the snow, the steel plates and square box that add \u00a0a touch of rusty red, the few sprigs of ornamental grass that move in the wind.<\/p>\n

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Are those deer I see grazing on the hillside? And what about that cat?<\/p><\/div>\n

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Old stone walls that were the foundation for a summer cottage, removed decades ago, provide\u00a0a contrast in texture to the new stone walls constructed\u00a0with gabion baskets. \u00a0Rising above the snow, both contrast with the flat cover of snow, as do the frozen chains dropping from the wooden uprights.<\/p>\n

And always there are the deer and the cat that never moves.<\/p>\n

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\"A<\/a>

A cat moves slowly through the deep snow, past deer that light up at night.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Structural elements stand out in winter, making patterns and shapes more evident. \u00a0In the meadow, the zigzags of the fence and the design of the green Chinese tile become dominant,leaving the rest of the meadow as background.<\/p>\n

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\"A<\/a>

A low fence separates a picnic area from the larger meadow.<\/p><\/div>\n

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On the hill\u00a0above the house,\u00a0the inverted branches that are part of the installation called Abenaki Walking become more forceful\u00a0when all around them is white….<\/p>\n

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\"Inverted<\/a>

That touch of red is my husband\u00a0snowshoeing across the field.<\/p><\/div>\n

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and the barbed wire that entangles them sparkles more menacingly\u00a0when encased in ice.<\/p>\n

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Barbed wire entangles the walking figures, preventing them from moving freely across the land as they did before Europeans arrived.<\/p><\/div>\n

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In the woods, the posts that mark the hours at the Sundial Clearing add their own note of mystery. Why are they here? Do they serve some purpose or are they merely arbitrary intrusions in a natural setting?<\/p>\n

(For more on this, see earlier posts at\u00a0http:\/\/glenvillaartgarden.com\/in-transit-en-route-the-beginning\/<\/p>\n

In Transit \/ En Route: part 2<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n