Cold Climate Gardening

The temperatures are still dropping into the teens every night (last night’s low: 17.5F or -8C) and even when the high hits 40F (4C) the brisk wind makes it feel chillier. But at least a hurried stroll around the premises is now rewarded with signs that Spring is slowly making inroads in Winter’s territory. These […]

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Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures
Maybe you can’t see it (go ahead and click on the photo for a closer look), but my eyes can see that the trees on the hillside have a definite reddish cast to them. This is reckoned as the first sign of spring here in Purdyville, or more properly, the […]

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And though one has begun to search for signs of spring almost since January, and to receive them, like postcards sent on a long voyage to home, it is with the greening of the grass that spring has, finally, certainly arrived.
It wasn’t until I read A Year at North Hill : Four Seasons in a […]

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This was the view out my kitchen door yesterday morning. We had rain which changed to snow as the day progressed. Because everything was wet, the heavy snow stuck to everything. When the wind picked up, the snow didn’t blow off the branches but added weight to the force of the wind. Consequently branches were […]

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The standard advice for pruning spring-blooming shrubs is to prune them no later than two weeks after they’re done blooming. This is because most spring-flowering shrubs, at least, all those commonly grown, develop their flower buds on the previous year’s wood. So if you prune them in high summer, or autumn, you are cutting off […]

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Good things come to those who wait. At least ten years ago, I planted the first of these snowdrops lining the path to the Secret Garden. You will have to click on the photo to enlarge it in order to see them, because they are the ones way in the back, on the far side […]

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