Pruning is the only gardening chore you can do in mud season, because your plants (and the weeds!) are still frozen in the ground. It's a great excuse to get outside and do something--actual gardening! The weather is very unsettled during mud season, so it's best to be strategic about what gets pruned when.
Garden chores
A Dahlia Grows in the Basement
January 4, 2021 – Posted in: Experiments, Garden choresOopsie. I finally decided to figure out what was in the garbage bag in the seed-starting area of the basement, and it's a dahlia. Sprouting. Now what do I do?
This Week Only: Both Garden Work Areas Tidy!
April 5, 2020 – Posted in: Garden chores, Tools and EquipmentI am so pleased to get both of these chores done--in the same week, no less--that I just had to share it with you.
My Wintering Over Experiments: Year 2
November 20, 2019 – Posted in: Experiments, Garden chores, How-toI'm reporting on the results of last year's experiment, when I wintered over a bunch of plants from my summer containers, hoping I can grow them again next year, even bigger and better. Some died, some struggled, and some did pretty well. I don't have ideal conditions, but I won't know what works and what doesn't unless I try. Read along to find out how I'm storing over a dozen different plants.
My Wintering Over Experiments
December 9, 2018 – Posted in: Experiments, Garden chores, How-toIt's an experiment: I'm wintering over a bunch of plants from my summer containers, hoping I can grow them again next year, even bigger and better. I know I don't have ideal conditions, but I won't know what works and what doesn't unless I try. Read along to find out how I'm storing over a dozen different plants.
When Is The Gardening Season Over?
November 13, 2018 – Posted in: Garden choresWhen does the gardening season end for you? The first frost? The first snowfall? I find it hard to call it quits, and here's why . . .
There Is No Bad Weather–Only Inadequate Clothing
December 1, 2017 – Posted in: Garden chores, Things I Love, Tools and EquipmentIf you want to enjoy those last days of gardening before the soil either freezes over or gets buried in snow, you need to have "adequate clothing"--clothing you might not immediately think of as gardening duds. Read on to learn what I wear when the weather is bad--I mean, challenging.
The Crazy Gardener’s Way to Plant Daffodils
November 24, 2017 – Posted in: Garden chores, Hardscaping and Projects, How-to, Narcissus, Roadside BedsThere is probably a machine that does what I did today, and does it faster, and maybe even does it better. But I don't know where I would find that machine, and even if I did, I probably wouldn't be able to afford it, not even to rent it. So it doesn't make any difference, except if I had done it with a machine, no one would think I was crazy. But I had a Vision of what I wanted to see come spring, and I was determined.
Yes, You Can Cut Back Dead Plants Too Early
March 10, 2017 – Posted in: Garden chores, Hellebores, Mud Season, WeatherI cut the dead foliage off my hellebores in February, and I paid the price in March. How was I to know we'd have the coldest temps of winter in March? Read on to find out what I did to fix things.
Tartarian Honeysuckle Chokes Out Spring Ephemerals
April 1, 2016 – Posted in: Garden chores, Mud Season, Native/InvasiveOne lesson I learned from Sara Stein, author of Noah's Garden and Planting Noah's Garden, was that non-native (also called alien) plants typically start growing and blooming before the native plants--at least in North America. That is because the climate they originally came from was milder, or warmed up gradually and consistently, and that is [...]
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