Siberian_iris

We know it's summer when the frost-tender mosaic bird bath (pictured above) takes its rightful place in the front garden. That move from winter storage was delayed because I was attending the Garden Bloggers' Fling in Toronto. (There's a good story about the bird bath here.) All the usual suspects are blooming, so I'll just [...]

My patience has been rewarded. The days of staring at mostly-bare-dirt beds with puny divisions of shrubs and perennials are over. The beds that I created the soonest after we moved in have now filled in. Granted, there are a lot of self-sowers filling in the gaps, but give me a viola over a dandelion [...]

After a mild start to November, we have recently had snow and bitter cold*--down to 15F(-9C) one night and in the low 20s for several others. You would think there would not be any plant worth looking at after that, and you would be mostly right. However, if one looks carefully, there are still some [...]

June has been rainy and on the cool side this year. I think that has contributed to a paucity of blooms. Or, it could be that the gardens at the new house are just a bit behind the gardens at our former house. Or maybe both. By mid-June, I am accustomed to seeing peonies, poppies, [...]

To every plant, there is a season, and I find that pretty much the same plants are blooming that were blooming last year and the year before at this time. So even though I'm intoxicated with my peonies and wowed by my poppies, I'll use this post to showcase some of the other plants that [...]

In Part 1 I mentioned the two hard frosts and a freeze we had recently, all of them rather later in the season than is typical. I illustrated how different species in the same genus reacted to the freeze differently, and also gave examples of plants that were damaged even though they were protected. Appearances [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]