Cold Climate Gardening

My favorite pink. If you grow it, could I have seeds?

Of all the species in the Papaver genus, I think I like peony poppies the best. Perhaps you know them by a different name, for they are also called lettuce leaf poppies, bread seed poppies, and opium poppies. Yes, that opium.

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A small change in routine can make a big change in the garden

I was the oldest of a large family, and I aspired to be a good girl. Not so much in the sense of morally superior; I wanted to do it right, correctly. Even as a child, I was a perfectionist.

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Good looking but hardly innocent

I call creeping bellflower (Campanula rapunculoides) the evil twin because it looks just like ladybells, (Adenophora confusa), only it is aggressively spreading and ineradicable, and ladybells is well-behaved.
So they say.

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Most gardeners don’t start out as weather geeks, but I think most end up that way. The fate of one’s plants is just too tied up with the weather. Garden chores will be different depending on the weather. And while golfers and swimmers rejoice at yet another hot, sunny day, we gardeners know another sunny […]

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A reader asks:
I am considering relocating to a colder clime (UP of Michigan) and I have never gardened further north than Wichita, KS so am wondering if I can have a koi pond if I run the heater (I do this now to keep a spot open in in the ice) and what plants do […]

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Turns out that was a clump of three plants, not one stupendous one

To all the admirers of the huge feverfew in my last post, especially Digital Flower, Pam, Layanee, and Bonnie, it turns out it was a clump of three plants. The flowers were looking brown and tatty, but I could see new growth breaking […]

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Larkspur ‘Sublime Dark Blue’

Ah, yes, Garden Bloggers Bloom Day has rolled around again. I always seem to have trouble finishing these bloom day posts on time. Even though I take photos for days ahead, the actual middle day of the month always seems to be a busy time. I should probably make it short and […]

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