Cold Climate Gardening

This photo was taken two days before the digital thermometer bottomed out in January 2005Quite a while ago, someone emailed me, asking what was a cold climate. I never did answer them, because I thought it was obvious. A cold climate is any climate too cold to grow the plants you really want to grow. If you live in Austin, and you want to grow pineapples outdoors, obviously your climate is too cold. If you live next door to me, and you want to grow crape myrtles; sorry, you live in a cold climate.

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One of the nice things about short winter days is that it’s not too difficult to get up before sunrise. These two photos were taken a bit after seven thirty in the morning. It’s not going to be much of a white Christmas, I’m afraid. Sunday the snow pack was dissolved by rain and highs in the 50s(F), and the highs are supposed to be above freezing the rest of the week.

In the second photo below, the edge of the cloud cover appears as a straight line, revealing the golden light coming up over the horizon.

The Heavens are

…

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Most gardeners don’t start out as weather geeks, but I think most end up that way. The fate of one’s plants is just too tied up with the weather. Garden chores will be different depending on the weather. And while golfers and swimmers rejoice at yet another hot, sunny day, we gardeners know another sunny day is a dreadful forecast: WE NEED RAIN!! (You blithering idiots!)

Recently, Robin the Bumblebee was discussing weather instruments. I can easily understand someone spending over a thousand dollars on weather instruments. And unlike Robin, recording “precipitation, temperature, wind direction, humidity, air pressure and such” doesn’t sound like “geekery beyond what I can support or even humor.” No, it’s more like the ideal

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Instead of a single day of good fortune like yesterday’s auspicious 07/07/07, this has been a week of luck for one reason: rain. Although it can’t be discerned from the surrounding woods with their uncommon fullness bordering on rainforest-like lushness, this summer has been uncommonly dry. Late spring and summer started out so well it wasn’t conceivable that midseason has me contemplating water conservation and rationing. I’m thinking the “D” word but trying hard not to say it.

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What I saw this morning [Photographer: Kathy Purdy]Just in case there’s anyone reading this who doesn’t yet understand what a cold climate is (I’ve had Australian searchers looking for “hardy plants” arrive at this site), I thought I’d give an illustration. When I got up about an hour earlier, the outdoor temperature was 36 degrees F (that’s 2 degrees C for you Australians–and the rest of the world). Checking my electronic gadget’s memory, I learn that the low was 35.8 degrees F at 5:47am.

At dinner last night everyone was remarking on what perfect weather we had had that day, and how we could take a whole summer like it.

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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 falling everywhere.

We were without power for twelve hours. The “nice” thing about a snowstorm at this time of the year is you know it won’t stay around. Although the roads were snow covered …

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I took this photo yesterday, a day ahead of Garden Bloggers Bloom Day. I knew that rain was predicted for Wednesday afternoon and throughout today, but late yesterday morning it was merely overcast and quite mild, and I thought, “Go looking for flowers now, or forget about it.”

So I went galomphing about in the nearly slushy snow, and took photos of snowdrops in various stages of bud. These were the closest to blooming.

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