Relatively speaking it was a nasty winter. It turned cold in November and is still a bit chilly most days in March, as well as dipping down below freezing at night. And tomorrow’s forecast is for rain, freezing rain and snow, So it’s not quite over yet.

When the wind chill took us below zero, people wrote off plants in this area. And true, even the English Ivy turned brown on that one. The St. John’s Wort followed suit, but I notice below all the dead I’m seeing green. To add insult to injury, we got one storm which left an inch of ice on the ground, which held on for over a week.

I thought I should at least try to keep something going, as an experiment if nothing else. So I tossed a bucket over the wormswood which came up late last summer. Since taking the bucket off a couple weeks back, I see signs of growth, and the damned thing actually looks robust (see photo above).

The only plant which managed to stay green through the winter without some kind of covering was tansy. The tansy I had planted directly in soil without mulching certainly turned brown, but by the beginning of Spring they were showing signs of green. One plant which had been heavily mulched – about two or three inches deep – still had some green leaves.

Since I plan on a complete makeover in the witch’s garden this spring, I may not be able to tell if my wildflowers would come back.