Cold Climate Gardening

A small change in routine can make a big change in the garden

I was the oldest of a large family, and I aspired to be a good girl. Not so much in the sense of morally superior; I wanted to do it right, correctly. Even as a child, I was a perfectionist.

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Long-time readers of my blog know that I have never shied away from being honest about the poor upkeep of my garden. Sometimes I find beauty in the weeds, and sometimes they depress me, but I’ve never pretended they didn’t exist. I agree with Colleen that fear of “not doing it right,” or “not being […]

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Canada thistle weaves throughout the peony bed

Observant readers may have noticed the prickly-leaved weed sidling up to ‘Rozella’ in my last post. That dastardly villain is Canada thistle, aka Cirsium arvense, and it is one nasty customer. According to the University of California Cooperative Extension,
Once established, Canada thistle spreads rapidly by horizontal roots, up to […]

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If you are short on time, energy, and money, but notably the first two, be conservative. You’ll be more pleased with one fair-sized, well-composed, well-maintained bed than with a half-dozen large beds that are choked with quack grass and creeping Charlie.
That’s excellent advice from The Complete Flower Gardener by Karan Davis Cutler and Barbara W. […]

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From this space, roughly five feet wide by six feet deep . . . . . . I dug out all these dock roots (that’s a 15-inch ruler) . . . plus this wagon full of rocks . . .plus these additional weed roots, mostly goldenrod

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Is there anyone in North America not having an atypical winter? These twigs were photographed by Justin in January. After I took the photos for the preceding post the first Saturday in February, I was able to spend a good two hours weeding before being chased inside by rain. For those of you who live […]

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Last Saturday and this one I weeded the patio bed, each time just enough to get one of my potted plants into the ground. Last week it was Molinia caerulea ‘Variegata,’ and today it was Polemonium caeruleum ‘Brise d’Anjou.’ Both of these have yellow variegation in the foliage which I intend to complement the flowers […]

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