Leaning into Dormancy
December 5th, 2023
As we inch closer to the shortest days of sunlight of the year, the very act of slowing down - of leaning in - to this season of dormancy can also be a way to also lean more deeply into resilience.
At a time when the holidays are right around the corner and work and school deadlines loom closer before the end of the year, our inclination is to get busier. To do more. And yet we often feel deep in our bones the need for less. The need for rest. The need to just leave it as it is, even though our culture says more, more, and still more. How do we do that this season? To be brave enough, self-aware and assured enough to let our gardens (and perhaps our lives) simply be. To watch, wait, and pause. To see what is happening. How do we lean more deeply - almost like a spiritual practice - into dormancy this season?
I find it is hard to slow down. Yet when I do, I find this season has much to offer and much to teach me about my garden, myself and the natural world. For me, as I imagine it does for many, the end of the garden season can leave me with a sense of loss. Trees lose their leaves. Weeds and flowers alike die back leaving stalks, seed heads, and darkened leaves. The structure of the trees becomes more starkly visible and shapely against the horizon. The daylight disappears, too, and the light's own intensity weakens as the sun shifts lower into the sky. Animals become scarce or quiet. Some migrate away or slow way down to save energy as they, too, ready for deep winter. Even for those of us actively growing vegetables or plants to last into winter, this is a time of slowing down, of less production, and of changing expectations as even the winter greens grow at a slower rate.
How do we tap into the resilience of this dormant season? One simple way for me is planting garlic and spring flower bulbs in late fall or early winter. The bulbs need the cold time of year to develop deeper and bigger roots, giving them even more reserve to bloom and thrive come spring. There is something about the space and time in winter where they are not required to nutritionally support leaves that allows the roots - their foundations - to establish. Planting bulbs is also an act of trust for a future bloom or harvest. As in the case of garlic, it is giving up some of your best harvest - your largest bulbs and cloves - to invest in future ones. The dormant season is about letting go.
The seeds of meadowflowers like milkweed and echinacea, many types of nuts like walnuts and hickory, and our northern fruits like pawpaw and wild berries all need the cold period - a cold stratification period- in order to sprout in the spring. Ideas and projects, too, sometime need this restful, dormancy in order to bloom into their full potential. Dormancy is holding space for new beginnings. Making room for stillness and something new to take root.
Dormancy is also a time to use less. One surprisingly example is the need for less nitrogen fertilizer. Nitrogen fertilizer is needed for fresh green growth and rapid leaf development. It is a common (some might say over-used) fertilizer used in fertilizer blends for quickly growing young plants. It is also a nutrient that becomes more available in the spring as the soils warm and the nitrogen-fixing microbes wake-up and pull nitrogen from the very air. This energy is very different from that of the dormant season.
In fact, adding too much nitrogen in fall in the form of fertilizer or compost can “wake up” trees, woody perennial plants, or even houseplants making them more susceptible to winter damage, pests or disease pressure. Too much nitrogen can cause weak growth even for winter hardy greens that normally would welcome it like lettuce, kale, or spinach. Too much nitrogen burns longterm carbon and organic matter stores from the soil especially when the soil is left bare or exposed. It can also be a sure way to attract pests like aphids who are all too happy to "clean up" weaker plants. Too much nitrogen undermines the natural defense plants employ as they try to steel themselves for the cold months ahead.
I found I do better for my plants when I focus on deeper nutrition at this time with trace elements and hardy mulches to "tuck them in" like a blanket. When growing greens for winter outside in a greenhouse, I add low-nitrogen fertilizer blends earlier in the fall and support them with high mineral blends like seaweed, rock dusts or high mineral clays. If I must add something in winter, I focus on fertilizers rich in trace elements. For a houseplant it could be as simple as dumping my half a cup of cold tea I forgot to drink into the plant instead of down the drain.
At this time of year, I try to be more mindful of where I am putting too much energy (like fertilizer) into the garden or in my life were it can do more harm than good. A too crowded schedule, too much rich food, or too much busyness... I find it can sometimes be too much. Taking the time to deeply nourish myself with mineral-rich foods or perhaps some blank space in my schedule is key. Dormancy is a time to use less and do less. Slow down. Be more deeply nourished.
Plants are ingenious. They go in on themselves. They produce more sugars and even taste sweeter after a frost like these giant leaves of "Monster Kale" I grew one season that tasted almost like sugar after a snow! This is a self defense mechanism. Sugar-saturated sap does not freeze as readily as pure water. The sweetness you taste in parsnips, kale, carrots, and hardy greens after a frost is a form of resilience. This season might be a time to notice the unexpected sweetness in life and in the garden. Leaning into dormancy can be sweet.
As a new gardener, I used to feel the pressure to make a clean slate in the garden before winter came. To dig out the roots of old vegetables and flowers. To churn and upheave the soil so that the surface was smooth and bare. It now makes me cringe as I have come to understand the complex world underground. This underground resiliency network is so vulnerable to physical disturbance yet the seemingly fragile web of connections underground makes it incredibly hardy to extremes in weather.
A well-protected, connected, structured soil allows plants to bounce back to life faster in spring and gives it a humming life force that builds year after year. If I must cut out old growth like removing old tomatoes and tomato stakes, peas and their trellising or rows of dead plants where I intend to put down a layer of mulch, I try to leave the roots of dead plants in the ground for food for beneficial soil microbes. I avoid extra digging or cutting into the soil - no more than is absolutely necessary (like planting bulbs) to avoid severing this network. I try to keep the garden covered, protected, and cozy, sometimes chopping the old plants to use as a homegrown mulch. These are all ways to support the soil and the underground web of connection. It is NOT a lonely time. It is a season of deepening connection even amidst the slowing down. A season to tap into what matters most. To connect and root more deeply. Within ourselves and with others.
I found I needed to release the need to "clean up" for winter. All the weeds and meadowflowers and berries in trees: we can leave them all! Prune the edges of your garden (or your life) if you must to make it look neat, but try to resist doing too much as best you can. The prunings have valuable protein and fat-rich seed heads for birds in desperate need of sustenance for migration or surviving the winter. Even the lonely-looking stalks of plants gone by are valuable homes - microhotels for overwintering bees and beetles and all manner of beneficial bugs. I’ve seen tiny sweat bees of every color of the rainbow, even purple and blue, that emerge first thing in the spring from these tiny dwellings. Think of all them: tiny jewels glinting from deep in your garden in the weary dead stalks, bark, and bushes in winter! Less management means leaving the stalks. Dormancy is about letting go of the need to control.
Too much water, too much fertilizer, too much heat… all things I gravitate to wanting to give my garden… yet at this time of year, they are not helpful. Too much cleaning or gifting or making can leave my garden bare and less able to hold and foster life. My energy, too, is prone to suffering this time of year. Too much can shift our plants and our gardens out of this beautiful preparation for winter. We work so hard to manage our gardens (and our lives) for winter: to rake up all the leaves, to clear away dead stalks, to prune and strip the garden bare. Where are we doing too much?
If we listen carefully, we may find our landscapes are often asking for less. The leaves which we desperately want to clear are a natural mulch. They are rich in trace minerals that stay locked away until spring. They are habitat for overwintering insects like fireflies, butterfly eggs and even hide valuable insect protein for our insect-eating birds like the winter chickadees and ruby-crowned kinglets that somehow find caterpillars (yes, caterpillars who use their own sugars to not freeze solid!) even in the dead of winter.
This season is an unexpected gift. Leaning into dormancy can be a way to nourish a deeper resilience within ourselves. It is counterintuitive: that less can be more or that slowing down on the outside can actually do more within ourselves and our gardens. Tapping into an effortless rhythm that nature (and perhaps our own true nature) already knows.
What will bring you greater resilience this season?
