Cold Climate Gardening

Poppies, peonies, and iris: the three Grandes Dames of June
In a cold climate, the gardening season is shorter and more compressed. By the time the spring flowers get going, boom! it’s summer. Consider this: on May 29th we had our last frost. The next day it hit 80F (27C), which we reckon to be summery, and a mere nine days later it was 92F (33C). So anything you wait until danger of frost is passed to plant gets hit with summer before it knows which way is up. That doesn’t happen every year, but it shows why we often have what other people consider spring flowers blooming with summer flowers.

Around here, there are three flowers synonymous with June: Oriental poppies, peonies, and several kinds of iris.

Popularity: 17% [?]

Okay, it wasn’t really Santa Claus. It was just the mail lady and the UPS man, bringing my two plant orders of the season on the same day. But I felt the same excitement I had felt as a kid on Christmas morning as I made my way down the stairs, wondering if Santa had brought me my heart’s desire.

Well, I knew my heart’s desire was in those boxes. Hadn’t I pored over catalogs, agonized over prices, and checked and rechecked my bank balance? Shoot, I even created some spreadsheets so that the total automatically incremented as I added each plant to the order. That’ll keep your feet grounded like nothing else will, believe me. The other big reality check is to have a column for where you’re going to plant each coveted botanical treasure.

Popularity: 6% [?]