Although the temperature has nominally risen above freezing, it’s still far from tropical here in the Monumental City. Water mains have broken all over the place, lending a nice Alaskan aspect to the streetscape — when the water gushes out of the broken main, it freezes and little baby glaciers form, sometimes enveloping an unwitting Olds here and there. It must be annoying to the nth degree to wake up on a frigid morning only to discover that your vehicle has been preserved for posterity under a two-inch-thick coat of ice.

Having just come off a bout of the Throw-Up Disease (and, apparently, having passed it on to Brian, my trusty sidekick), I’m surely not in the mood for the more exuberant Winter methods of killing time. I think if I tried to go skating right now, I’d drop dead before I made one turn. Pity that some of the Highlandtown bars don’t set up temporary shop near the Patterson Park rink; they’d do well and it would make the whole skating experience considerably more fulfilling.

I put a couple of loaves of bread in the oven tonight, hoping that the smell of baking would warm my extremities in a way that my faithful, ninety-year-old furnace had thus far failed. It worked to a certain extent, but let’s face it — when it’s this cold outside, even a potent hot toddy isn’t going to help too much. The baking bread only made me (and my hapless neighbors to the south, who can smell every pot of coffee I make through some perversity of rowhouse architecture) violently hungry.

No, far better to warm the heart and other, more easily frozen naughty bits by planning for the summer. I shot an email off to everyone I can think of, reminding them of the beauties of Delaware’s Silver Strand in August. That done, I sat down with graph paper and started to plan my garden.

There are two distinct issues when planning a Baltimorean garden. First and foremost: Roses are sacrosanct. Next: You have a very small space to work with. Not as minuscule as a New York garden; the poorest drudge of a Baltimore dockworker has a garden plot equal to the most overbuilt atrocities of Fifth Avenue. Nevertheless, you don’t have the broad acres of Westover, here. Every iota of space must count. And, thus, the fun in planning.

For years, my main interest in the garden has been to provide flowers for the house, and to obsess over my favorite roses. Therefore, I’ve planted the roses somewhat at random. Ironically, the ones that have served me best have been the bargain plants and those from the City’s arboretum castoffs.

This year, I finally plan to enclose the garden behind a wooden fence. This is a distinct departure from tradition. I’ve always loved my old-fashioned wire fence, because it doesn’t feel so closed-in, but as the other gardens that adjoin mine are all paved over now for parking space, the idea of being closed in doesn’t seem so bad. What a tragic day it was for Baltimore, when parking space became more valuable than a garden behind the house…

I’ll have to ditch a couple of the roses, too, which haven’t proved as bountiful or as pretty as I’d imagined. I’ll keep “Königin Elisabeth,” of course; and the weird bargain rose “Grand Event.” That I’ll keep my climbing “Baltimore Belle” goes without saying. Some of the rest, though — well, a few of you might discover a rosebush on your doorstep.

I’m sure that it occurs to many as rather odd, to fuss over old roses and plan a May garden in January. Reflect though, if you will, on your own favorite gardens. Think of dew on red rosebuds early in the morning, of a blast of daisies at midday and forget-me-nots in the evening. Remember the smell of a lemon pie wafting out the kitchen window while you sit with a “Gin-and-It” in the garden…

Takes the edge off the cold, doesn’t it?