Rhododendron leaves look lovely in winter, with fleshy green leaves and spring buds. If it gets really cold, though, the leaves shrivel and roll, as a protective measure, which may not be as pretty, but it is interesting. Lapis2380/Shutterstock

A wonderful thing about having a garden at your home is that it is yours. You can grow whatever you want, wherever you want. It’s right outside your door and always available, as long as you can put up with whatever the weather is doing at the time.

Some towns have laws that restrict what chemicals in the form of pesticides you can use, but those restrictions are minor and they benefit society and often wildlife.

The broad range of activities that are part of gardening awaits you and whoever you garden with – be it a spouse, parent, offspring or sibling. Planting and picking are the most fun, but weeding and other maintenance at least get us outside. I’m counting on our property to be a refuge this year, a place to heal from what I suspect will be daily mental injuries inflicted by national politicians and likely to dominate the news.

The healing power of the garden needn’t wait until the start of gardening season. Though they’re mostly dormant here in New England, gardens are still attractive in winter.

A viola, or Johnny Jump Up, blooms outside in December. They’re tough little plants. Photo by Tom Atwell

While walking across our vegetable garden in early December to cut balsam branches for holiday arrangements, I was pleasantly surprised to find some violas in bloom. These are tough little flowers in blue and yellow, related to our native violets but not native themselves; they originate in Europe and Asia. Last March, I also discovered a few viola blossoms. I’ll be keeping an eye on them whenever the ground is snow-free to see if — even in Maine — they can blossom year-round.

Another non-native now providing a late-season show is Andromeda, botanical name Pieris japonica. I mentioned this plant in a column I wrote last summer, noting that it’s an early bloomer I prefer to forsythia, the shrub many people think of as a harbinger of spring.

The Andromeda we have might be “Brower’s Beauty,” but we planted it a years ago, when plant names weren’t uppermost in my mind, so I could be wrong. In late fall and early winter, it has many conical clusters of flower buds on reddish stems. They look striking on the bushes and likewise when added to table arrangements with evergreen tree branches and holly.

Yes, it is OK to plant some non-native plants, as long as your garden also has some native and wild areas, which ours does – both in our display areas and in the third of the property that we leave wild to provide food, shelter and habitat for native wildlife.

Even if they’re dead or well past their prime, many plants still look good in the winter garden. Take hydrangeas. We haven’t cut the spent blossoms off ours, either in the macrophylla or paniculata families. Those blossoms are especially attractive when snow-covered, if we ever get any lasting snow this winter, and when swaying in gentle winter breezes.

Rhododendron also look good in winter, though admittedly their most spectacular season is spring. When winter temperatures are warm, the thick green leaves and plump blossom buds contrast wonderfully with the brown soil and fallen leaves. More dramatically, when temperatures plunge to 20 degrees Fahrenheit or below, the leaves roll up and droop. They’re not dead. This is actually a sign of Mother Nature’s wisdom. Rhododendron leaves are most susceptible to high winds, heavy snows and bright sunshine when temperatures are very cold. With less area exposed to the severe weather, the leaves can survive. The name for that reaction, by the way, is thermonasty.

A walk around your yard is good exercise and also may give you ideas for projects you want to do later in the season. Anyway, to paraphrase John Prine’s “Spanish Pipedream,” turn off the TV (and internet), throw away (but still buy and recycle) the paper, ignore the news and enjoy your garden, no matter the season. It will bring you pleasure in this cold, dark time of year.

Tom Atwell is a freelance writer gardening in Cape Elizabeth. He can be contacted at: tomatwell@me.com.