A light frost has arrived, but my Southern Illinois cottage garden is still full of color. Here's what's blooming, what surprised me, and what I'm planting for next year.

Winter asks us to slow down. In the quiet weeks of the garden, preparation, patience, and small rituals begin to take shape.

This garden didn't come together all at once. It grew through trial, error, and slow attention - becoming a place of calm, texture, scent, and reflection, shaped as much by patience as by plants.