Cold Climate Gardening

Here is the first flower of 2003, which opened in my garden today. It’s a crocus, not a snowdrop, which was a surprise to me. But it’s a crocus that I think got unearthed when I was planting peonies and probably wasn’t as deep as it should have been. Now you’re going to ask me what variety it is. Well, it’s definitely not a Dutch crocus, but the smaller, earlier kind–some catalogs call them snow crocus. And I think it’s Princes Beatrix, but I couldn’t swear to it.

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This is our third day of mild weather (in the 60s today!) but my first opportunity to get out and take a look. There are snowdrops well up in the Secret Garden with snow all around them. I wonder if the rest of the snowdrops there are up, too, and just hidden from sight? Maybe they had already sprouted when I went to look at them earlier, but who would know with a foot-and-a-half of snow above them? The snowdrops that I bought as Sam Arnott are just poking through. The south-facing side of the driveway has crocus and snowdrops emerging; the north-facing side is still covered in snow. My Cornus alternifolia ‘Argentea’ wasn’t gnawed by the rodents, …

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Just came across the November/December 2002 issue of Organic Gardening, and on pages 34-35 they had plans for the mother of all coldframes. (Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the plans on the Organic Gardening website, so you’ll have to find the issue at a library and photocopy it.) The author, David Wann, and his neighbor designed “a frame that could deliver fresh food straight through our harsh Colorado winter. Our plan of attack was to give it a sheltered spot oriented directly south, sheath it in insulation, sink it several inches below ground level . . . and equip it with thermal mass–basically, water-filled milk jugs–to store solar energy.” The coldframe is built around the dimensions of a discarded …

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This has nothing to do with cold climate gardening per se, but should be fascinating to anyone who loves flowers. At Floral Radiographs: The Secret Garden, Albert Richards displays his x-rays, yes, x-rays, of many common flowers. He produces an image both beautiful and fascinating. Now, I saw this same technique in the March 2003 issue of Marth Stewart Living, this time employed by Bryan Whitney to illustrate basic botany concepts. MSL came in my mailbox, but I found Richards’ floral radiographs via dublog via MSNBC’s Weblog Central. Amazing where you’ll end up when you start surfing the internet, eh?

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I just learned from The Wired Gardener, an email publication of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society put out by Janet Evans, that Larry Hodgson now has a companion volume called Annuals for Every Purpose. Haven’t gotten it out of the library yet, but if you’re looking for the one, you might as well check out the other as well.

The Wired Gardener comes out once a month and usually has links, book reviews, and a listing of garden-related events put on by the PHS and other organizations in the surrounding area. I say “usually” because this month the link section was missing, and it’s my favorite part. Even though I don’t live close enough to Phillie to take advantage of …

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Most plants, if they’re started indoors, should be started 6-8 weeks before your last frost date. Since our last frost date isn’t until the end of the first week of June, 6-8 weeks is about mid-April. Leeks are the earliest thing I start–mostly right now I am doing planning. I’m trying very hard to strike the right balance of seed starting this year: not too many, not too few, not too varied, not too un-varied. I don’t want to be drowning in plants, but I want to have a wonderful garden. I want my vegetables to produce lots of delicious food, and I want my flowers to be gorgeous and smell heavenly. And I want to bury all of the …

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I recently checked Perennials for Every Purpose by Larry Hodgson out of the library. After reading it through, I’ve decided to promote it to my Recommended for Cold-Climate Beginners list, keeping company with Easy Care Perennials by Patricia Taylor (sadly, out of print) and just nudging Perennial All-Stars by Jeff Cox into third place. What gives Hodgson’s book the edge is that he’s a Zone 3 gardener and speaks from experience regarding the hardiness of the plants he discusses. As a matter of fact, more experienced gardeners will enjoy perusing this book to compare notes. More than once I found myself thinking, “That’s hardy for you?” Often, but not always, it was hardy with …

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