Cold Climate Gardening

Thanks to Kent Swanson of Organic Rose Gardening, I discovered a whole site devoted to the rose hybridizing work of Griffith Buck. Dr. Buck developed roses that were pretty hardy (definitely to Zone 5, and often to Zone 4) and disease resistant. I thought he bred them for fragrance, as well, but I wasn’t sure about that. So I googled and discovered the Sam Kedem Nursery in Minnesota. I’ve had my eye on ‘Country Dancer‘ ever since White Flower Farm featured a very glamorous photo of it in their catalog (they no longer carry it) but now that I’ve seen ‘Chorale,’ I feel myself wavering. Of course, we all know the perfect solution to …

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Those of you who are long-time connoisseurs of garden blogs will be glad to know that Notes from Zone 4 is back where you can find it again. For those of you a bit newer to the garden blog scene, let me just say that the writers of this blog, Lisa and Frank Richards, win the “Guaranteed-to-make-your-jaw-drop” Blog Award hands down. As I mentioned before, they are very ambitious in all their projects, which have now gone beyond growing plants to raising sheep as well.

The project of theirs I’d most like to duplicate is their weather station set-up. Lisa first mentions it in her 5/10/2003 entry, and again in her 6/4/2003 entry. (They don’t have archive links set …

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Maybe it was Chan’s recent Taste Test. Or maybe it’s the fact that I should be writing the grocery list. (I always get my best ideas when I’m supposed to be doing something else, don’t you?) Anyway, I just came up with a list of garden-related dreams/fantasies that have been banging around my head for ages. Some are totally unrealistic, some possible, and some eminently doable–provided I have the time, money, and/or ambition. One is totally out of my hands. Ah, but I can dream, can’t I?

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Well, it’s that time of year again. It’s time to decide what will be bought for the coming spring. It is time to decide what will be done in this year.

Really, this is the very worst time of year to be making plans. Winter in these climes keeps a person trapped inside for so long that by the time February comes around one is positively delusional with grandiose plans for the coming year. The more weeks that pass with nothing but the four walls of the house to look at the bigger plans become. I try to sit down and make mature and thoughtful purchasing decisions for the coming year, but it is a big joke. In reality, if someone said, “So, why don’t you climb a mountain, build a house, dig a pond, and plant a huge garden, all before the end of spring–” I’d say “Sure! That would be easy!”

Okay, maybe I’d realize the folly of climbing a mountain. Maybe. But somehow every year I do make far more plans for my limited time than I could ever possibly accomplish. I start the spring with all sorts of high hopes, only to have them most cruelly dashed when reality comes crashing down on me. It’s a cycle that happens every year–without fail–and every year I see it coming. And yet, I still fall for it every time. I find it impossible to not be exuberant at the thought of spring. What can I think besides “When all this snow melts off I’ll whip everything into shape”?

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My brain has been taken over by gardening catalogs. I am ashamed to say how much time I have spent looking and figuring. I usually scorn cook’s garden because of the Park’s connection, but I want the Borlotto Pole Beans and the Erbetta.

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Just in case you’re too busy enjoying summer, I’d like to point out to you that many fall bulb catalogs have deadlines coming up. If you order before the deadline, you get a discount that, while not stupendous, might offset some, or all, of the shipping cost for you. Odyssey Bulbs and Brent and Becky’s Bulbs both have July 1st deadlines, and McClure & Zimmerman has a June 30th deadline. So, this weekend, while you’re lounging by the pool, or lazing in a shady hammock (my preference, though we don’t have a hammock at the moment), bring along your bulb catalogs, a red pen, and a calculator, and see what you come up with.

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We have been having plentiful rain, which after so many dry years feels like luxury. And the plants do look luxurious, weeds included, of course. I have been enjoying the spectacular flowers of June. First came the Oriental poppies. I have the traditional flaming scarlet ones paired with Campanual glomerata ‘Joan Elliot,’ a deep, rich purple. Funny, inside the house (on the walls, say) this color combination would be too much, but outside it seems to feed a hunger I didn’t know I had. I want to get more poppies, but in the rose-pink range. They had an article on some terrific looking ones in the May 2002 issue of Horticulture. I think they’s really set off some of my peonies.

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