A Snow Garden and Other Stories

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Standing, laughing at the dogs bounding through the snow. They try to leap higher than snow drifts and get drenched with the snow falling from the branches as they cavort through snow laden shrubs. As early as January, these pink flowers emerge from a carpet of silver-marbled foliage and bloom. Snowdrops and these go well together. Ii is lovely to see the sun shining on frost covered flowers, turning the garden into a spectacle of sparkling diamond jewels. I wander through, the fresh snow crunching satisfactorily under my feet.

But pruning of trees and shrubs is not a gardening task for a frosty, snowy day, as it would risk damaging the plant. A mother of two finds a cure for a broken heart where she least expects it; a husband and wife build their son a bicycle and, in the process, deconstruct their happy marriage; freak weather brings the airport to a standstill where travellers are stranded and lives collide in a sudden birth; a young woman changes the course of her life by saying one word at a barn dance; a father foolishly promises his estranged sons there will be snow; the most famous boy in the world comes home, hoping for a normal family Christmas; a law-abiding old man discovers guerrilla gardening. It has to be said that I even enjoyed the forward. In it the author describes how the characters in this book were sort of ‘left-over’ from her other books. We readers get a tiny glimpse into the author’s mind and how she views the characters portrayed in her fiction. Peripheral characters in her other books whose appearance in them was very minimal, or cut out altogether. She cared enough about their stories that she felt they needed to be told. And I’m glad she did.

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A Faraway Smell of Lemon: Binny is doing some last minute Christmas shopping and is trying to cope with the fact her husband has just left her. It's such a simple story with a limited plot but it shares a wealth of emotion and gives us a fantastic character. Owner, Martin McCarron opened the centre seven months ago with his wife Stephanie after buying over the land which was a former golf course clubhouse. The couple also own the WestEnd Garden Centre in Glasgow and with a vision in mind were able to expand their business with the Homegrown Garden Centre in Gartcosh where they sell decorative home wear, accessories, outdoor furniture, outdoor and indoor plants and even have a collection in store for your furry friends.

My favorite character of the seven stories has to be Binny, a forty-seven year old single mother. She is mentioned in both the first story, “The faraway smell of lemon” and the last one, “Trees“. Her live-in partner, Oliver, has just a few days before Christmas – left her…Nature has undoubtedly mastered the art of winter gardening; Plews is taking notes by visiting clients’ gardens, gardens open to the public and walking in the countryside. All these provide a list of possibilities to create snowy winter gardens for new and existing clients; gardens full of winter scented flowers and evergreen richness. Maybe Joyce's forte does not lie in writing short stories, because a lot of them felt contrived, unrealistic, and abrupt. There were no explanation to fantastical things, there was no depth to the characters, and we didn't have enough time to become invested in any of the stories. These shrubs add a fiery display of orange, red, or yellow stems to the garden in the winter. On them, early flowering bulbs look fantastic underplanted. For the most vibrant stem colour, plant in full sun, prune annually in spring and ensure the soil does not dry out. Dogwood (Cornus) care guide. Joyce chooses to write about ordinary and forgotten people, but sometimes her vision of chavvy types doesn’t quite ring true, and when she isn’t being melancholy she’s twee. “Christmas Day at the Airport” was so contrived it made me groan. While I don’t think any of her books are truly great, they’re pleasant, relatable and easy to read. Yes, I admit it, I do find that first fall of snow a magical event. I love waking to the quietness, the stillness of a snow covered winter morning.