Cold Climate Gardening

As many of you know, I am a member of the Garden Writers Association. A while back, I was asked to be a member of a panel discussion on garden blogs at the annual symposium, which is being held this year on September 28th through October 1st in Oklahoma City.

This explains the message on the tip box, way down at the bottom of the sidebar, that says, “Help me get to Oklahoma City.” Much to my grown offspring’s astonishment, the GWA doesn’t pay the expenses of their panelists. You get a small honorarium and a big hint that they hope you’ll donate …

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Colleen of In the Garden Online is starting the Mouse and Trowel Awards, a program “to give recognition to those bloggers, website owners, and retail outlets that add vibrancy, convenience, or pure eye candy to our world.” Nominations are currently being accepted. Finalists will be announced on April 13th, and winners announced on May 13th.

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In my series on Garden Blog Pioneers, I reported in the final part that Notes From Zone 4 was MIA. Well, they’re back.

If you ever had doubts that a cold climate garden could look good, take one look at their banner image and doubt no more. Then, appetite whetted, browse through their gallery. A sight for snow-blinded eyes.

As noted in their About section and other places on the site, they are very involved in raising animals now, and the garden takes a back seat. But of course, even in the animal department, they don’t do things halfway. I had never heard of Icelandic sheep, and wasn’t aware that any sheep breed could live on the …

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Horticulture Magazine has jumped on the blogging bandwagon. Managing Editor Meghan Lynch and Executive Editor Sara Begg are both giving it a whirl. At the moment, though, you can’t get to them from the website’s main page. How dumb is that? The only reason I even found them is because I subscribe to the email newsletter. Since they’re just getting started, I expect a link will be up there shortly.

You might say Meghan discovered me. She (anonymously) wrote a sidebar praising this blog in the spring of 2005, and offered me the chance to write the book reviews for the April 2006. …

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Many of you know I keep a listing of garden blogs on this site. For some of you, it was how you found me. It’s an indication of how our little corner of the blogging world has grown that two more blog directories specifically devoted to gardening blogs have shown up.

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Excuses, excuses. Here they all are:

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a short growing season makes for a very hectic spring. I am a victim of this no more and no less than any other short season gardener. The birthday season. Others drop out during the holiday season, but here in Purdyville we celebrate 9 birthdays between mid-March and mid-July, plus Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and two family reunions. That’s a lot of extra cooking and shopping and celebrating. It is wonderful to have so much to celebrate, but it does take time.
End-of-school-year testing and report writing.
A horticultural junket to Ithaca, NY and the writing of the article that prompted it. (Anticipated publication in Horticulture Oct ‘06, Northeast edition only) A …

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I am envisioning this to be a collaborative blog amongst gardeners in cold climates, especially hardiness Zone 4 and colder. People I plan to invite include Bub, Innes, my sisters, the Adirondack gardener, the owner of northerngardening.com, the Suite 101 Northern gardener. This blog would be a part of my website, which will also list books about cold climate gardening, links, resources, etc. I’m also going to have a section on North Hill and the writings of Winterrowd and Eck, also a listing of upstate New York nurseries. I also want to have some of my writings with photos. Maybe a link to a photo album.

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