January is one of those funny months isn't it?  You long to see something growing outdoors, you're tired of winter, you're ready for spring, but there are still weeks to wait until spring weather arrives to stay.  Fortunately here in Tennessee we are blessed with mild winters and get that occasional nice warm winter day to get out and get our gardening fixes.  So what is going on in our January gardens to look at?  Believe it or not there's always something interesting to see!

The recent threat of snow dumped a whole dusting of snow on our plants!  It definitely wasn't the kind of snow fall that kids dream of that keeps them home from school, just a dusting, but it was enough to make the lamb's ear look a little more like a lamb - or at least white anyway!

Other colors can add some winter interest to the garden if you add the right plants.  Plants like nandina do a great job of provided both evergreen color and some bright red color from their berries.  The only downside is they tend to spread and have lots of little baby nandinas!

I like to leave oak leaf hydrangeas alone until spring so that we can enjoy the dried seed heads.  Once the weather changes I'll cut the hydrangeas back and pin any low lying branches into the soil to make a few more through layering.

If you like the winter interest provided by ornamental grasses here is a picture of the 'Shenandoah' switchgrass near my garden shed.  In a few weeks I'll cut the grasses back for the new growth to emerge.

Red twig dogwoods look pretty nice this time of year.  The bright red stems look especially good near evergreens, it's too bad I don't have more evergreens around to use as backdrops!  Red Twig dogwoods enjoy a good pruning of the older branches every couple years to renew the red shoots.  If you ever want more just stick a few hardwood cuttings in the soil during the fall and winter months and by mid-spring you'll have a rooted plant!

One nice feature of my winter garden is the winter blooming jasmine.  Winter jasmine emerges in blooms anywhere between mid-January and March and usually well before the forsythias begin to bloom.  The timing of its blooming is largely dependent on how mild of a winter we have had.  This year the flowers are breaking in January while last year it bloomed in March.

Another winter blooming plant that graces the January garden is witch hazel. We have two of these native plants, their fragrance is nice but very faint.

There's a quick trip around my January garden.  Fairly soon it will be time to start sowing the seeds of the 2012 garden, are you ready yet?