Cold Climate Gardening

In 1878, Sherman Stowell sold to Elizabeth Brockett 30 acres of land which he had earlier purchased from George Jennings. I now live and garden with my family on some of that land, which Jennings or Stowell, or perhaps Ms. Brockett, had cleared of trees to make pasture. The forest is growing back, but it’s not the same forest. For one thing, several invasive plants are now growing here, everything from Rosa multiflora to Lonicera tartarica. And where are the trilliums?

Call me a romantic or call me ecologically correct, but I’d like to restore the native flora to my parcel of land, land that was sown to timothy and grazed by cows. How does one go about such a restoration? For starters, you have to know what plants were originally growing there. I’ve taken an informal survey of our property and catalogued all the natives I’ve found. I mention trilliums because they bloom along the roadside further down our country lane. What will it take to grow them here?

Popularity: 25% [?]

It got up to 51 F yesterday, so I took a walk to see what I could see. And what did I see, but my first glimpse of snowdrops:

What! You can’t see them? Look closer:

Oh…you didn’t think I meant snowdrop flowers, did you? For that you’ll have to wait another two-and-a-half months. Seriously.

Popularity: 19% [?]

…

Popularity: 23% [?]

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.

Popularity: 22% [?]

Good looking but hardly innocentI 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.

Popularity: 28% [?]

Forsythia before pruning beganBack in April, I discussed my upcoming plans to prune my forsythia bush. It wasn’t flowering very much, and my commenters agreed with me that it needed a heavy pruning. Some even suggested cutting the whole thing down to the ground. But I felt a little too nervous to do that.

Popularity: 29% [?]

Instead of a single day of good fortune like yesterday’s auspicious 07/07/07, this has been a week of luck for one reason: rain. Although it can’t be discerned from the surrounding woods with their uncommon fullness bordering on rainforest-like lushness, this summer has been uncommonly dry. Late spring and summer started out so well it wasn’t conceivable that midseason has me contemplating water conservation and rationing. I’m thinking the “D” word but trying hard not to say it.

Popularity: 14% [?]