Cold Climate Gardening

In a dark sort of way, I was inspired by Don’s garden tour to give you one of my own. Both of our gardens have been plagued by drought, but judging from his photos, he is able to water his garden, which is never as good as plentiful rain from the sky, but helps a lot. I can’t water on a regular basis because we have a shallow well and we put a high demand on its resources. Consequently a walk through my garden is a painful exercise. Here we have a wilting lilac bush accompanied by wilting swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata). This is the only milkweed common in our area, and I wonder if other species of milkweed would look so wilted. Of course, other species of milkweed wouldn’t enjoy the damp conditions that occur here in a normal year, and under which the milkweed normally thrives. No one seems to mention that the flowers of swamp milkweed are wonderfully fragrant. I have mistaken them for oriental lilies.

Tunic flower (Petrorhagia saxifraga aka Tunica saxifraga) requires good drainage, and I sometimes have trouble keeping it through the winter, so I modified the soil to have better drainage. The middle plant made it through the winter, but expired sometime this summer.

Yes, even wilted peonies. It hurts to go past them on my way to the mailbox.

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