Mud Season

You could be forgiven for mistaking coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara) for a dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) from a distance, especially if you didn't know that coltsfoot is the earliest blooming wildflower in northeastern North America. Can you tell them apart when I put them next to each other? Furthermore, coltsfoot flowers bloom without any foliage at all. [...]

A couple of years ago, I told you to choose your fall-planted bulb locations now, when the snow is just beginning to melt. Of course, it helps to have snow. We finally got some, and I thought you'd like to know I'm following my own advice. I went around the yard, camera in hand, taking [...]

Crocuses and snowdrops are blooming in my northern garden. In February! In any other year, it would be preposterous. Yes, it's been an unusually mild winter, but none of my other crocuses, including all of those on the Crocus Bank, have poked up even one pointy leaf. As you probably surmised from the title, these [...]

The eighteen inches of snow that had fallen on the night of March 6th had finally melted this past weekend. (For a few dramatic pictures of that storm, visit Cold Climate Gardening's Facebook Page.) And now it's snowing again, to the tune of five or more inches. This is demoralizing. But cold climate gardeners are [...]

It was 36F and very lightly snowing. There was no wind, so I called it good enough, bundled up and went out to trim some hellebores--the ones no longer covered with snow. Why trim hellebores? 1) The new foliage and buds look better without the ratty foliage that persevered through the winter. 2) It lets [...]

Mud season is when the old-fashioned buckets and the new-fangled tubing used for collecting maple sap make their appearance up and down our street. We don't tap maple trees for syrup, but some of our neighbors do--and so does my brother. Here is how he got started making maple syrup.--Editor It all started at the [...]

. . . one has begun to search for signs of spring almost since January, and to receive them, like postcards sent on a long voyage to home ~A Year at North Hill The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and the ground . . . is still covered in snow. At sunrise this [...]

A fellow gardener emailed me earlier this week: Oh cold climate wise one, Have you seen the forecast for Friday?! Snow and lows in the high teens. What does this mean for all the little perennials I've pulled leaf mulch off of? Should it go back on? I'm really looking forward to actual gardening this [...]

I hate to admit it to you Southerners, but when the snow melts, what it invariably reveals is…a mess. I'm not just talking about the dead vegetation that needs to be cut back. There's human-made messes that ought to be dealt with, too. But let's talk about the plants first. Cut back and clear out [...]