We’ve been in snow for over a week now, celebrating Christmas cozily while the garden sleeps.

This seems the right time and place to review some ups and downs of the past year. Without getting too personal (this is a gardening journal, after all), it’s been both a challenging and rewarding year, as all years are, but with an emphasis on challenging for a host of family reasons. We’re definitely ending 2017 on a high note with the birth of our first grandchild on December 16. He was so eager to see the world that he showed up two weeks early. He’s a wonderful, miraculous gift. New life, new joy, new promise of beauty to come!

2017 Gardening UPS:  A more attainable vision and realistic pace throughout the year; seeding success with poppies, delphinium, heliotrope and many other flowers; a fun few days away with fellow master gardeners and good friends at our statewide MG conference;  a hugely bountiful, extended broccoli and carrot harvest; success with starting a second barrel of elusive meconopsis; two new beds of beautiful strawberries; transition to wood chip paths and an automated drip system in veggie garden; enjoying giving advice to quirky clients at local MG plant clinics; wonderful dahlias; producing Coppertop maple syrup for the first time; a great new front garden; spring Wednesdays spent in 2nd grade classrooms teaching plant science; growing pumpkins for the first time.

2017 Gardening DOWNS: Devastating snow in November; a much smaller tree fruit harvest due to mid-spring freeze; rebel raccoons; disappointing asparagus harvest or decline of plants; spying my first rat at a bird feeder; returning home from a trip in April to trays of dead seedlings due to neglect; a potato harvest that left much to be desired; voles galore.

Yes, it’s worth it to continue this gardening adventure! Time in Coppertop gardens keeps me of sound mind. And I now have a precious grandson to whom I want to pass along my love of all things flora. I just know he’s bound to love Coppertop. Doesn’t he look fascinated?