Cold Climate Gardening

I spent my childhood in climates where the flowering dogwood (Cornus florida) flourished, and I loved its elegant simplicity. When we moved here, I was dismayed but not surprised when my new neighbor told me that she had twice planted a flowering dogwood in a protected corner of her house, and twice it had died. Having just endured my first thirty-degrees-below-zero-Fahrenheit winter, no, I was not surprised.

Popularity: 25% [?]

Pruning the apple trees is a rite of spring. In past years I had a tendency to get started late and finish in a somewhat hurried splurge of activity–tinged with a bit of panic that perhaps I wouldn’t get it done in time. This year I had to take a different approach.

Since I’m no longer living at home, I don’t have seven days out of every week in which I can choose when and how long to prune. I’m only home on Sundays, and Sunday afternoon is really the only time I have of that day free to prune. That means instead of having thirty days in a month when I can choose to prune, I have four or five. And that is assuming every Sunday afternoon is actually free and the weather is of acceptable quality.

I could, of course, have not pruned the apple trees at all.

Popularity: 18% [?]

One of my favorite places to buy gardening books is Edward Hamilton. They do sell some new books, but most of them are remainders and closeouts. No problem when it comes to gardening books, as they don’t go out of date that fast and the good ones always bear re-reading.

Popularity: 7% [?]