Cold Climate Gardening

When I wrote about the bank garden in March, it was still winter. Now spring, with all her vagaries has come to Halcott, and of course that means mild breezes kissed by the warm sun, followed by cold stinging sleet. Ah, the duplicities of spring, the perfidies of prima vera! The bank was battered by a rainstorm on April 2nd that not only dislodged many of the pine logs from their moorings, but also washed away much of the soil they held up. It is an arrangement not yet perfected. I have replaced many of the logs with some ash trunks rescued from the side of the road that had been destined by the highway crew for the chipper. Ash is straighter and more enduring. Maybe.

But what of the plants? The daffodils as you can see, are still coming on. I cannot think of a better beginning to a cold-climate spring than the noble daffodil: golden harbinger of the gardening season. They have been blooming here since about April 18th, and I have some planted on the north side of a stone wall who have not yet even opened. They give brightness and joy for a good six weeks and when they finally turn to messy foliage, there is so much else going on around them that I don’t care. Nevertheless, it has not been the best spring for daffodils. They had a spell in April when the weather was so deceitfully warm that they burst forth too hurriedly. The next week some heavy wet snow bowed them to the ground. Daffodils are good sports, regaining consciousness as soon as the temps grow mild again, but no one can take such a battering without a little lessening of spirit… The bottom layer has been slow to bloom. These were the ones I put in last autumn, and in my experience, newly planted daffodils are always tardy the next spring.

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I can hear, but still not see redwing blackbirds trilling in the trees, and this morning the Canada geese announced themselves with plaintive hooting and great lazy shadows crossing the lawn. We are perched on the edge of spring! I’ve been preoccupied for the last three years with other matters, and gardening has taken a back seat. But as my life calms down somewhat, I’m discovering that one never gets away from gardening; it’s been there the whole time, running in the background of my mind. And I seem to have come back to it with a greater dollop of patience and wisdom than when I left: problems that before were insurmountable, seem much less daunting to me now. Also, the effects I was frustrated in not being able to achieve before, seem to have either happened behind my back or my standards have declined considerably. Probably the latter� But best of all, the old familiar rush of excitement has returned as I contemplate the seasons and their chores before me. Our local Christian Center advertised Easter as New Year’s for the soul. Surely spring is New Year’s for the gardener. I have made all sorts of resolutions.

My first task is to dig up from my memory all the little surprises I managed to plant before the cold drove me into the house last autumn. After our new kitchen extension was put on the back of the house in 2002, the views from those bright windows cried out for garden beds so I started a terraced bank behind the house. It took two years for me to dig the five layers, and still they need constant adjustment. The above picture that I took this morning shows the pine logs that I use to contain each step and how the ravages of winter have left them in total disarray. They are dislodged by water run-off from storms, by deer stumbling across them, by lawn mowers that catch their edges. However, they will do until a better idea presents itself to me. Each row has a footpath behind it, wide enough for me to crawl along, weeding and muttering and generally communing with things. I usually have a cat in attendance, hiding among the daylily foliage and reaching out a paw now and then to let the weeding hand know who’s boss.

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