Normally my house plants are happier outside than inside. I keep them outdoors in filtered light with normal rainfall as long as possible. It is a challenge for me to maintain tender tropical plants, because I prefer more independent hardy low maintenance plants.

The garden in winter is never as quiet or inactive as I might wish, and this is emphatically true for gardens in the Lowcountry. While I might dream of several months off from the labors associated with keeping a garden healthy - things like weeding, pruning, digging up and dividing, adding mulch, etc - in fact, winter is a great time for doing just those jobs. Fortunately, not everything requires attention this season, unlike the rampant demanding growth everything shows once the weather warms up.

As I look back on 2016, it could be said my garden was in a holding pattern. There were times when it seemed to go a step ahead then two steps back, another step ahead then plateau. Freaky weather means freaky growing patterns. We can try and replicate the ideal conditions but nothing works better than the real thing. Evenly moist soil and moderate temperatures are, I'm afraid, just ideals.