Cold Climate Gardening

Okay, I am not big into lawns. We ourselves have what Ken Druse calls a “cropped meadow.” But to each his own. If you were affected by this summer’s drought, and your lawn has seen better days (or years), go read Yard & Garden Line News, published by the Minnesota Cooperative Extension, for some good advice on how to deal with the damage.

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There are two kinds of people in the world, those who believe there are two kinds of people in the world and those who don’t.–Robert Benchley

When it comes to gardening, there are two kinds of weeders in the world, those who say, “When in doubt, yank it out,” and those who “On a whim, leave it in.” I am one of the leave-it-inners. If I wasn’t, I would have yanked out Oriental poppies, lupines, and ‘Zebrina’ mallow out of my newly acquired garden, relics from the previous gardener that I didn’t recognize. My friend Bub calls them “wait-and-see” plants.

Well, I will be the first to admit wait and see is a double-edged sword. If I had followed the advice of my father-in-law, who told me, “I don’t know what it is, but it’s a weed,” I would not be pulling motherwort (Leonurus cardiaca) out of my shade garden every year. In its first year, it makes an intriguing rosette of foliage, quite ornamental. In its second year, it shoots up and makes many seeds, and its flowers aren’t all that eye-catching.

Last year, way in the back of my north border, I spied a very attractive plant with blue-green leaves and maroon stems. I didn’t know what it was, so I decided to wait and see what the flowers looked like.

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Carol of May Dreams Gardens made a wonderful discovery. Google has made several old gardening books in the public domain available for download. This sounds like a great project for the winter, once the seed and plant catalogs have been thoroughly marked up. The quotes she pulled from various books certainly make them sound enticing.

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It was April. I had just come back from a cabin-fever-induced tramp over our field and through our woods. I had noticed this red-leafed vine growing all over:If our field is 5 acres, then this was easily growing on two acres of it. It lined the main walking path and carpeted the ground near my favorite sitting spot. And then I read Judith’s post about poison ivy. Uh-oh.

It’s a vine. It has three leaves. It has the lovely red fall color that is supposed to be characteristic of poison ivy, carried through the winter into spring. (We had had rather mild winter temperatures, and not too much snow.) How could it have grown all over without my realizing it was happening?

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If you feel proud of yourself for learning to upload a photo or adding a few items to your sidebar, you might not be aware of what’s up-and-coming in the blogging world. Even if those two tricks have been in your repertoire for a long time, you may, like me, have been too busy to keep up on the latest trends. That’s why I asked M. Sinclair Stevens and Doug Welsh to help me–and you–get up to speed.

Is there a difference between an audio blog and a podcast?

[MSS:] “A podcast was originally an audio clip that uses syndication. Sites like iTunes then allow you to subscribe to the podcast. The word podcast is a morph of broadcast and …

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This is the ninth part in a series about the early days of garden blogging, written to commemorate my four years as a garden blogger. For those just joining us, the the names of the respondents to my email questions, and links to their respective blogs, can be found at the end of this entry. Links to previous posts in this series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8.

10. What’s next for gardeners interested in internet communication? Today, blogging. Tomorrow?

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This is the eighth part in a series about the early days of garden blogging, written to commemorate my four years as a garden blogger. For those just joining us, the the names of the respondents to my email questions, and links to their respective blogs, can be found at the end of this entry. Links to previous posts in this series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7.

8. What advice would you give a gardener starting a blog today?

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