Cold Climate Gardening

Wyn recently commented elsewhere:

I live in zone 2 and am looking for a shade plant that is non-poisonous to pets for the north side of my fence. When I entered that info in google it sent me to this site. Lovely pictures and great info, unfortunately not really my zone. LOL.

Judging by my commenter’s email address, I’d say this gardener lived in Saskatchewan, and it’s not clear whether that’s Zone 2 on the Canadian map or the US one. Either way, it’s definitely colder than my neck of the woods. I told Wyn that even though I was in the balmy climate of USDA zone 4/5, many of my readers were in colder climates.

I …

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And what is retirement for, if not to make a few dreams come true? And what is a garden for, if not to satisfy the longings of your heart?

I have learned a lot from watching the garden of my best garden buddy, Bub, develop. The most satisfying garden, for the gardener and for others, is one that grows out of the desires of your heart. Bub’s garden is filled with hellebores, daylilies, and even trees that she grew from seed, musical instruments she can play, birds, chipmunks, and squirrels she can watch and feed, and a labyrinth through which she walks.

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Readers, I’d like your help in answering this email:

I live at 8800 ft. in the Rocky Mountains ( yes, we have had snow recently also) and want to garden. I did not get 1 tomato last summer because nights are cold.–although my flowers and herb pots did well. This year I have cut out 2 areas to do about a 300sqr.ft. garden.

Where can I get a comprehensive list of vegetables that thrive in the colder climate? At least then all I’d have to worry about is beating off the elk!

I certainly have not gardened at such a high altitude and I wonder if tomatoes and other hot weather crops are even possible at …

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When I’m thinking of building a garden project, the first book I turn to for ideas and inspiration is Classic Garden Structures by Jan and Michael Gertley. I’ve read and leafed through many books on making and building objects for the garden but this one remains my favorite. Beyond their inherent usefulness, all of the projects are good looking, well-designed, and a pleasure to own and use. They are simple enough to be doable with only a few that are really challenging. I’m still thinking I might be able to build my dream greenhouse someday.

The Gertleys have a way of taking many common garden objects and making them extraordinary. Ornamental molding on tomato cages may sound peculiar but when you’ve seen how the Gertleys use it you will wonder why it isn’t commonly done. Many of the structures have finials, end caps, and posts with ornamental flourishes but instead of looking fey or twee you will be saying yes! to yourself as you’re reading.

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Look at the hardiness map for Minnesota and you will see that the whole state is in zone 4 or colder. The Minnesota State Horticultural Society, which publishes Northern Gardener Magazine, is devoted to helping northern gardeners. If you join the society, besides the magazine you will get borrowing privileges at the society’s library (they mail you the books!), as well as other benefits that would mostly appeal to local members. Or, you can subscribe to the magazine alone.

This month’s issue featured an article on hardy magnolias, as well as a northern native (bloodroot in this issue), an article on hardier …

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The Intimate Garden: Twenty Years and Four Seasons in Our Garden by Gordon and Mary Hayward belongs to the rare breed of landscape design book that is actually helpful:
One private residential garden–not little glimpses of a dozen gardens
The garden was developed over many years. (They figured it out as they went along)
They tell you the problem, solutions considered, and what they finally implemented
They tell you about their mistakes, and how they corrected them
There is a labeled map of the whole gardenI only know of one other book with the same scope that is so helpful, and that is Mary Keen’s Creating a Garden. But Mary Keen lives in Great Britain, and even while drooling over the gorgeous photos of her garden, I’m always wondering, “Is that hardy here?”

The Haywards, on the other hand, live in Vermont, in Zone 4, and I can be fairly certain that if a plant grows for them, it will grow for me.

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I took this photo yesterday, a day ahead of Garden Bloggers Bloom Day. I knew that rain was predicted for Wednesday afternoon and throughout today, but late yesterday morning it was merely overcast and quite mild, and I thought, “Go looking for flowers now, or forget about it.”

So I went galomphing about in the nearly slushy snow, and took photos of snowdrops in various stages of bud. These were the closest to blooming.

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