Mid-January is not a particularly good time for an angry, my David Austin roses died, “Give em’ hell” Garden Rant. Our fallen leaves in Indiana have barely begun to compost. The avalanche of seeds catalogs has predictably arrived, but it’s too early to do any serious ordering of seeds or plants. What to do with the three trowels and a chain saw Christmas gifts is not yet an issue.

So, OK, then, please consider this:  What’s wrong with a happy, up-beat, midwinter, fairy tale, and somewhat educational gardening rant? A positive, ice-coated, take-what-shows-up-and-like-it rant. Such as the recent arrival of colorful, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs mural spread 30 feet across our three-car-garage to welcome, well, snow. With a Snow White and Seven Dwarfs  ensemble added at the base. And painted flowers on that garden wall offering blooms 12 months a year – including January. Flowers that appear to be zinnias, daisies, lupines, morning glories and pink tropicals. Heck, yes, I’ll take it. Who needs Florida?

So, OK, most of you may not have a three-car garage sprawled out across your back yard. Not my problem. We didn’t have one either until a recent move to our new place. The house came with  a fine, old, fenced-in  garden gone to weeds and ruin. Both custodial and challenging. And way in the back, buried behind vitriolic vines, was an old three-car garage with dirty walls.

 A few months ago, after some needed clean up,  I was staring at our back yard desolation and dirty garage wall thinking … what a great place for a garden mural….Combined with that was the knowledge we had brought along from our old place our life-sized (dwarf-sized anyway)  statues of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

How about something new?

So why not give it all to new garden life by painting a fairy tale setting complete with thatched-roof dwelling, meadow, flowers and birds. Something happy  to look at every day of the year, as I am doing right now peering out our back window on a cold, sunny January day.

Serendipity, thy name is “Beige.” She is the artist recommended by a gardening  friend. As with her name, Beige was poetically ready. She showed up on a regular basis. She studied. She thought. She read the fairy tale. She went to work with, yes, cans of spray paint. Cans. No brush. She spray-created all the details, the zinnias, daisies, and lupines. Add in the blue river and stone bridge, the rabbit and chipmunk. She was careful, dedicated and cautious. Michelangelo could have finished the Sistine Chapel in at least half the time with spray paint.

Beige also touched up with paint all the fairy tale garden’s occupants, Ms. White and Dwarfs. Ms. White in bright yellow skirt and blue blouse with red bow in hair. More horticultural research indicated Ms. White’s name came with a very complicated tale, including a mother who wanted a daughter with skin as white as snow. And a jealous stepmother, the Evil Queen,  who wanted Snow White dead, causing her to flee to a thatched-roof home of the seven dwarfs.

These guys were different

The seven, Doc, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Bashful, Sneezy and Dopey, all miners, were painted in various colors. Each name reflecting a distinct personality. Most likely to garden being Doc, Happy and Bashful. I’m also thinking Grumpy hated gardening and Sneezy had allergy problems. The other Dwarfs  were only in the way when it came to gardening.

With her work ethic, kindness, optimism and gentle nature, Snow White ran the Dwarf House. She loved to garden, but was also naïve and overly trusting, which led to trouble. The Evil Queen showed up at the cottage in disguise, poison apple in hand. Snow White took a bite, fell into a coma. Then came a princely kiss and salvation.

 So along with having a cool story hanging on my garden wall, the mural lead me to some plant research. Beige had an artist’s right to pick any flowers she wanted on her mural, but I became curious about what flowers were in vogue in the early 1800s when Snow White headed off to the woods to live with a bunch of dwarfs.

Turns out the early 1800s German gardens were part of the Biedermeier era, when middle class sensibilities and artists took hold of the culture, with romantic designs. Popular perennials from the era include snowdrops, gentian, peonies, lambs ear, cornflowers, phlox, rudbeckia and aster. Modern gardeners tend to think we invented all that stuff. Not to forget edelweiss – feel free to hum along here – the last song created by Rodgers and Hammerstein.

This flower rant does have happy feet

With more history. The Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs story was based on a Brothers Grimm fairy tale published in 1812. And who were the Brothers Grimm, you now ask? They were actual brothers and pioneering German linguists and folklorists who collected and published classic German fairy tales such as Cinderella and Hansel & Gretel. Thus, laying foundations for folklore studies and preserving German culture.

 Do you now see where an upbeat  January garden rant can lead?