January 18, 2001

Spring forward

Getting a jump on warm weather projects during winter months

By SALLY D. KETCHUM
Special to the Record-Eagle
      During winter, snow isn't the only thing that accumulates. Life's stuff piles up, too. Mid-winter seems to be the worst time for the overload of clutter and projects that need to be done.
      However, these housebound winter months can be the perfect time to get a jump on spring by seeing the home at its potential best, envisioning what needs to go, what needs to be added and what needs change.
      While it may be early for spring cleaning, it's not too early to think spring by surveying rooms for what one decorator calls "room dandruff" - unwelcome clutter, unread magazines, ubiquitous knickknacks and small, abandoned projects.
      January is white sale month and the month to be proactive about spring. Actually "white sale" is a misnomer, for the sales are colorful. Think spring color, one-color, one hue in various shades, or one family of colors like pastels. Paint is also on sale this month, another factor in planning color.
      Traverse City interior artist Joan Bonney has strategies to lighten up rooms for spring. For one, she suggested, change the color of candles.
      "Candles are still a warm and welcoming part of any room," she said, "but holiday colors can be replaced with spring colors, perhaps the colors of primroses."
      Bring pretty branches inside and stick them in pots or even with foliage houseplants or bouquets of fresh flowers. Twigs are airy and do not add heaviness or clutter. In a few weeks, blooms may be forced from branches to bring spring inside. Bonney also suggested rearranging furniture to focus on an outside birdfeeder.
      Of course, the jump on spring applies to the yard, gardens and grounds, too. A two-fronted attack works well: taking notes and taking pictures of the winter yard. A garden diary to record, under each dated entry, what each plant or tree is doing, how it looks now and the weather conditions on that date will be a boon when choosing planting sites.
      Along with individual consideration, note how everything in the yard works together, not only tree to shrub, but snow drifts to the drive and hedges to the gate. Where is the snow heaped? What perennials are covered? Has wildlife nibbled or worse, eaten young trees to the ground?
      Where would color, a red bud tree, orange rose hips, or bright red berries on an ornamental crabapple tree, improve the scene on a January day?
      Envisioning the year midsummer helps to find areas to shade. Now is the time to order a red or sugar maple, a red leaf white birch or a cold-weather resistant quaking aspen that is a wonderful lush green summers. Thinking spring is thinking dogwoods, flowering crabs, redbud and hardy crape myrtle.
      Another ploy is getting outside now and feeling the yard's windchill. Does it inspire a windbreak? Fragrant and rugged red cedar, cottonless cottonwood, Russian olive or even old fashioned lilacs work as windbreaks.
      January is seed catalog month and the new catalogs are more comprehensive, easier to read, more informative and usually offer both seeds and plants.
      They also give gardening tips. Helping spring planners, the catalogs include newest and best varieties - those that are relatively disease-free, that produce fruits by themselves, and are best for starting indoors.
      Envisioning the home and yard without its deep winter trappings and snow, and creating the vision of them in spring gives us a jump on the season.