Cold Climate Gardening

1. Oriental and asiatic. And species. Every form & color (except not the lollipop ones that look like little stop signs.)
2. Out here no-till means mega herbicide and slit seeding; not for me. I hand till the raised beds when I set them up and then renovate occasionally. Anyone telling you ‘Nature doesn’t till’, though, hasn’t gotten outside much: think gophers, wind, water erosion, coyote dens, wood frogs. . .
3. Gloves. 16 hour days in the garden aren’t for the faint hearted.
4. Tchotchkes–what a nice word–not for me, except maybe chimes if they are muted.
5. Clay would be nice. I’m gardening on several hundred feet of glacial sand & silt.
6. Antique roses! Hardier, easier, …

Popularity: 2% [?]

Someone once called me “the patron saint of garden bloggers.” That seems to overstate the case, but I am very interested in seeing garden blogs succeed. I live a somewhat isolated life, and garden blogs help fill the void left by not having a regular source of garden chitchat in my life. Nevertheless, I have been remiss. I came across several garden blogs this spring that I failed to bring to your attention. A recent request to be added to my list spurred me to catch you up, so here goes:

Popularity: 2% [?]

Before: June 2004
After: July 2004

This is the bed I was talking about earlier. The two photos weren’t taken at the same angle, but you can use the white-variegated grass (bulbous oat grass, Arrhenatherum elatius subsp. bulbosum ‘Variegatum’) and the hosta ‘Francee’ to help orient you. The weeds in the first picture are primarily jewelweed, Impatiens capensis. The bed in the “Before” photo is actually partly weeded. When I started, the jewelweed overtopped everything, including the sizable hosta. It reminded me of a tropical rainforest in miniature. Fortunately, jewelweed is one of the easiest plants to pull out. In moist, cultivated soil you don’t even have to reach down to the roots. You can just grab the top of the plant and pull and it will come out, roots and all.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Maybe it was Chan’s recent Taste Test. Or maybe it’s the fact that I should be writing the grocery list. (I always get my best ideas when I’m supposed to be doing something else, don’t you?) Anyway, I just came up with a list of garden-related dreams/fantasies that have been banging around my head for ages. Some are totally unrealistic, some possible, and some eminently doable–provided I have the time, money, and/or ambition. One is totally out of my hands. Ah, but I can dream, can’t I?

Popularity: 3% [?]

It took me approximately 5 hours to plant 5 plants yesterday, but boy, did I have fun. They were mail-order plants that I potted on soon after I got them, because I knew it would take me a while to clear out the place where I intended them to go. But even though they had plenty of root room, the lowest leaves kept yellowing and dropping off, which did not seem to me to be a good sign. Somehow it seems worse (probably because both the horticultural and the frugal parts of me are involved) when a plant I paid good money for is not thriving, as opposed to a plant I was given. So I was feeling a bit panicky about these particular plants, though for all I know, it is their natural habit to drop their lowest leaves.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Perhaps it’s a sign that the garden blog genre is maturing . . . perhaps not. Nevertheless, I was delighted when the Bookish Gardener threw down the gauntlet and offered this “taste test”–except it’s not all about taste. (See my objections at the end.) What you do is, copy her list into your own blog, and then highlight your own choices in bold. Her preferences are always the first listed, so you can easily calculate what percentage of choices coincide. And then, like me, you can argue with all of them. C’mon, it’s summer; join in the fun!

1. Lilies: oriental or asiatic?
2. No-till or till?
3. Bare hands or garden gloves?
4. Garden tchotchkes, no or yes?
5. Clay or sand?
6. Shrub roses or hybrid teas?
7. Hollyhocks: single or double?
8. Foliage: gray or glaucous?
9. Hemerocallis: flava or fulva?
10. Impatiens: double or single?
11. Calendula or tagetes?
12. Arborvitae or juniper?
13. Spaded edge or “edging”?
14. Asters or mums?
15. Reflecting pool or coursing waterfall?
16. Morning glory blue or forget-me-not blue?
17. Lettuce: leaf or cos?
18. Hyacinth bean or red runner bean?
19. Orange or pink?
20. Garden bed shapes: formal or informal?
21. Garden bed planting schemes: informal or formal?
22. Hydrangeas: lace-cap or mophead?
23. Spirea japonica: dried flowerheads standing over the winter or in bloom?
24. Japanese beetle drowning medium: kerosene or dishsoap solution?
25. Garden stroll time: dusk or dawn?

Fifty-two percent agreement, by my calculations. But–but–but I have to explain everything! So click the “more” link for all my appendations (is that a word?), equivocations, and objections.

Popularity: 3% [?]