Cold Climate Gardening

Often gardeners are encouraged to mulch with straw, especially for food crops like, um, strawberries. Too often, the gardener, severed from his or her agricultural roots, mulches with hay instead. In Missed stacks and mistakes: distinguishing between hay and straw and other heaps, Alan Ritch explains the difference:
Hay, of course, is fodder for the animals; […]

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When I was growing up, there was a game show on tv called “To Tell the Truth.” The various contestants tried to trick the game show panelists into thinking they were the true zoo veterinarian or whatever weird occupation was featured that day.
Sometimes I think my colchicums are trying the same trick on me. Oh, […]

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I was catching up on a few garden blogs when I happened upon a comment from one Brooke, who alluded to gardening in Alaska. Oh, goody, thinks I, another cold climate gardener. Once I get there, I realize she’s Dirt Diva One at Dirt Divas Gardening. Huh? I thought the Dirt Divas were down in […]

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Colchicums as a whole are pretty miraculous, emerging from out of nowhere and blooming without leaves, but this particular variety (Colchicum agrippinum) takes the cake. I planted it in autumn of 2004. It didn’t bloom then, and it failed to send up leaves in 2005. Not surprisingly, it didn’t bloom in 2005, either. When […]

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Isn’t this a stunning specimen of Polygonum cuspidatum? The generous rainfall we’ve had this season has brought it into top form. Too bad it’s on America’s Most Wanted list. Yes, this is Japanese knotweed, aka Japanese bamboo, Mexican bamboo, fleeceflower, and Fallopia japonica. (I’ve been told that it’s also known as privy weed, but I […]

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Autumn mornings here are foggy. It seems, on first glance, that we are in for another cloudy day. A consultation with online weather reveals that it’s supposed to be clear. Then you realize that the hillside across the street is shrouded in mystery.
By ten o’clock the fog will have burned away and the day […]

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Some plants are bold. They would like nothing better than to be planted in the middle of the garden, flailing their leaves, emitting impossibly sweet fragrances. Others are more secretive, more sinister, skulking in dark places and hidden ways, hoping to be overlooked by humans while they continue with their mystifying activities. And then there […]

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