Cold Climate Gardening

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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It’s great fun to compose wishlists of seeds to try and plants to grow, but, you know, you have to put those plants somewhere. Figuring out where to put them is called the design process. I’ve come across two books lately that help.

The Perennial Gardener’s Design Primer by Stephanie Cohen and Nancy J. Ondra provides in one volume the kind of information it took me several years of reading gardening magazines to acquire. If, like me, you’re a magazine addict of long-standing, you probably won’t learn much, though you’ll be reminded of an awful lot you might have been on the verge of forgetting.

The biggest problem with most introductory books is they are superficial and boring. Cohen and Ondra manage to avoid both.

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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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