| The Toronto Botanical Garden’s entry garden in January 2013 |
Today, we’ll put November to bed, and tomorrow we’ll wake up to December – which some feel means the end of colour in the garden. Well, all the leaves may be brown, and the sky is grey… but when we go for that walk on a winter’s day, that’s not such a bad thing, is it?
Last June, when Paul Zammit, head of horticulture at the Toronto Botanical Garden, showed our Fling garden bloggers how he magicked a container, he made the bold statement: Brown is a colour. Yes, Paul, you’re right. Look at all the shades of it above. Brown is beautiful.
Though, technically, winter doesn’t come for three weeks, I’ve tried to turn you on to it before. Winter is a season with a lot of brown in it. Or a lot of browns. Think of them all; the richness. Tan, russet, fawn, bronze, buff, chestnut, coffee, sepia, ochre. Goodness, there’s even a brown called fulvous!
So, for the last post of my unofficial NaBloPoMo 2015, I’m going to try showing the browns in my life some respect, appreciation and gratitude. I invite you to join me.
2 comments
It's funny but I don't think of winter as colourless at all – there are your beloved browns (I especially love the tans of swaying grasses) and the greens of evergreens and the reds of dogwoods. And then there's white – one of my favourite winter "colours". All of the other colours seem to look that much better when surrounded by it or dusted with it.
I'm with you, Margaret. The subtle tones of winter are a wonderful refresher for the senses, awakening us to the power of less.