Is it just me, or is February the toughest month for a gardener?  Spring, summer, and fall are all great seasons with plenty to enjoy in the garden–but winter seems to drag on forever.  My mental state definitely declines through the winter months:

December: “Whoo hoo, I love this time of year!  Snow is great–it makes it feel like Christmas!”

January: “Alright, new year, fresh start, stuff to do.  It’s cold, but no problem–I’ll just water my houseplants!  That’s all I need, right? ………Right?”

February: “AAAGGHHGH!  WILL WINTER EVER END?!?!”

In an attempt to maintain my sanity this year (what little I have anyway), I’ve developed an 11-step February Survival Plan.  I share it with you in hopes it helps you create your own sanity plan:

1. Exploring Leu Gardens in Orlando.  When I travel, I make it my mission to find and visit a local botanical garden.  A work conference took me to Florida in late January/early February, and I took the opportunity to check out Leu Gardens.  I’ll share the awesomeness in an upcoming post, but for now, here’s a preview:

2. Starting seeds indoors (for the first time!) Wish me luck, friends: I’ve not started a plant from seed since my science class did the whole sun vs. dark experiment with a bean seed in middle school.  My setup is ready to go and I’m going to be attempting to grow impatiens, coleus, and a really cool begonia.  (Geez, you would think I had shade or something.)

3. Visiting my favorite greenhouse.  Every February, when my winter blues start to really hit, I make a call to my mom: “Want to go to Family Tree Nursery and pretend it’s spring?”  We meet up at the nursery and take a deep breath as we step through the doors into the greenhouse.  It’s lush and green and it SMELLS LIKE SPRING!  We spend a couple of hours puttering around, pointing out the coolest plants we see, and picking out a few houseplants to add to our own collections.  It is heaven.

4. Growing houseplants.  A good foundation for a gardener’s winter survival plan because, hey, they’re green when nothing else is!  Bring enough of them into your house and you can make it feel like a tropical oasis.  Take it to the next level by adding a few (hundred) orchids.  Some people are crazy cat ladies…I’ll be the crazy plant lady.

5.  Enjoying the indoor water garden.  If you don’t have one, you should.  We built ours from a plastic stock tank, 2x4s, plywood, and some free slate roofing tiles.  Go big like we did or take it down a notch with a small container water garden or fountain.  Either way, the sound that comes from an indoor water feature is amazing, especially in winter.

6. Getting inspired.  On weekend mornings you can find me sitting with a cup of coffee and drooling over beautiful garden pictures in the latest issue of Fine Gardening magazine, on Pinterest, or on blogs like Three Dogs in a Garden.  Be warned if you try this strategy, as it’s a double-edged sword: while I get a dose of inspiration and new ideas, I also find my spring fever flares up big time.

7. Attending an orchid workshop.  If you follow me on Instagram, you know I developed a teensie-weensie obsession with orchids after a December trip to the conservatory at Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens in Richmond.  I’ve since added two orchids to my living room, but I’ve vowed not to purchase any more until I learn how *not* to kill them.  Powell Gardens in Kansas City is hosting a “We love orchids!” workshop this month where I’ll have the chance to learn about orchid care, help to repot their collection, and bring small start home as my 3rd orchid.

8. Working in the garden.  If I’m lucky, we’ll get some nice days sprinkled in during the month.  There’s plenty of work to be done during those nice days: cleaning up the beds, watering plants as needed, finishing the paths on the south side of the garden, and prepping for the water garden installation.  While it’s not as fun as working when the garden is all green and beautiful, it needs to be done and perhaps I’ll get to enjoy some crocus blooms while I’m out there.

9. Planning garden projects.  I have a few areas of the garden that I’ll be tackling this year–I’ll need to add plants around the new water garden, finish out the south end of the garden, and move our fire pit and seating area next to the water garden.  This year, instead of just planting whatever catches my eye at the nursery, I’d like to give a bit more thought to each area to ensure I have year-round interest and a good structure.  You can be sure I’ll have a stack of checklists and drawings by the time we reach day #28 of the month.

10. Creating a plant wishlist.  Plant catalogs are arriving in the mailbox and I’m like a kid with a Christmas toy catalog, circling everything I want.  At this point I can safely say that I’d need to win the lottery to buy everything I have circled, so February will be spent prioritizing and pruning the list.

11. Enjoying the birds.  Yes, I get it: I’m old.  But, seriously, birdwatching in winter is the best–when everything else is brown and boring, birds bring life, color, and movement to the garden. As I write this, we have snow falling and my bird feeding station is a happenin’ place with cardinals, finches, wrens, woodpeckers, and of course, squirrels.  Beau is totally slacking on his squirrel-chasing duties.

So that’s my strategy–what’s your February survival plan?  Any great ideas that I’ve missed?  Let me know in the comments, because my sanity needs all the help I can get.