Most people have written off the garden until next spring, but that’s a sad and premature move when there is so much more beauty to be found from now through winter. If one allows their eyes to adjust to detect the finer and more subtle gradations of texture and color, there are wonders and revelations for the more discerning eye. Case in point is this withered stand of cup plants.
While they pale in comparison to their deep green leaves and bright yellow flowers during the summer, the leaves and stalks now take on sculptural interest, rising like hooded figures, some curving and flaring like an elephant’s head and ears. The only limit to what they might be is the imagination, and I’ve always kept mine sharply and keenly active, especially when the outside world is mostly asleep.
These stalks will stand strong throughout the winter, bravely defying wind and rain and sleet and snow. The leaves will gradually be torn from them, slowly disintegrating by the time the last days of winter limp away, until it’s just the spindly spires splintering apart as spring makes her grand return.
