“Brr, it is cold! 

…Well, then, make a fire in my room; let the garden sleep under its eiderdown of snow. It is good to think of other things as well; the table is full of books not read, let’s do that; we have so many other plans and cares, let’s make a beginning. But have we covered up everything well with brushwood? Have we wrapped up tritonia? Haven’t we forgotten to cover the plumbago? Kalmia ought to be protected buy a branch; what if azalea gets frozen? What if the tubers of Asiatic ranunculus don’t come up next year? In that case we shall plant instead… wait… Wait a bit, let’s look through some catalogues.

So in December the garden is mostly found in a great number of garden catalogues. The gardener hibernates under glass in a heated room, buried up to the neck, not in manure or brushwood, but in garden catalogues and circulars, books and pamphlets…”

The Gardener’s Year, Karel Capek, 1929