Cold Climate Gardening

I normally don’t weed my beds in November, because it is too chilly, wet, windy, and perhaps snowy. However, we have been enjoying a string of unseasonably warm days and I was able to take advantage of it today. Weeding grass out of daylily foliage is usually pretty tricky, because the leaves are so similar. But my daylilies have gone dormant, while the various weedy grasses will continue to grow until the ground freezes solid. If we get a good blanket of snow before that happens, those grasses may grow slowly all winter long. So it’s nice to get the upper hand for once. For a little while.

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Every year about this time, the Juneberry bed looks like this:
This photo was taken last July, but gives you the general idea: milkweed, musk mallow, lambs’ quarters, and a weedy form of evening primrose all detract from the daylilies that are supposed to shine here.
Being a detail person, in past years I have attempted to deal with the problem by starting at one end, and taking care of every single weed in one spot before moving on. Like this:

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These plants don’t look too happy, but I’m not sure if it’s the cold that put them in a snit, or a viral infection. Left to right: Daylily 2E, Colchicum giganteum, Daylily 4B, C. ‘Harlequin,’ Daylily 4C, C. speciousumAfter nearly two weeks of warm, frost-free weather in April, my garden got socked with a 22 degree (-6C) night. I would like to think these poor plants are suffering from frost damage, but I know streaking in the leaves is a symptom of many plant viruses.

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