Oh, the weather!

 

There are days when I wonder how I became a gardener in Zone 3. How can I love something so much that is so dependent on the weather when I live where it is winter forever, it seems? I have been busy reading about how to diversify my greens in the kitchen garden, advancements in urban gardening and now, most importantly, how to protect my early flowers from frost. I have been doing all of this reading in preparation for the coming garden season and in anticipation of spring. Little did I know that winter is just arriving! We have had the most wonderful, mild winter in Saskatchewan this year. Last week the snow finally arrived and has not stopped since. The temperature is beautiful though so we have been in a cycle of melt, freeze, melt, freeze, melt, freeze.... which is great for ice photos of the trees but not so great for the spring flowers. I think they are likely getting confused. I hope I don't lose too many of them. The freeze/thaw cycle here can wipe out whole gardens if the temperature drops at just the right time. I am ready though. All of my sheets are steps away from the garden if I need them after the first buds pop out. This is a year when the Boy Scout motto is well advised - be prepared!

Dare I Hope?

That next year the sidebar of this blog will say "Danielle's Zone 5 Garden"? Yes, it's true. We are once again considering moving East. This time, I think it may actually happen. Fingers crossed, everyone. Stay tuned for updates :)

Tulip Deadline Zone 3

It is time to finish planting and moving tulips in zone 3. According to Environment Canada, we have three more days of good weather and then a few of bad. Once the bad hits in Saskatchewan, all bets are off and there are no guarantees. Last Fall, I added so many new tulips that this Fall, I am finding myself content with moving what I have here already and saving some of the old that are struggling in very tight spaces. The fact that Linda and I were discussing tulips the other day, which made me pull out my trusty notebook, to realize that so many of my new ones did not perform well this year, has made me a little tulip weary. I was planning on just moving my 'Angelique', 'Bastogne' and crowded 'White Dream'. I think now that I will move all of the tulips that did not perform well this year and see if I can get them to give me a better display next year. I am hopeful that even with the increase in number, I can finish in one day so that is now my agenda for tomorrow. I am starting my race against time... and snow!

Zone 3: City vs. Country Gardens

I was in Judy's City garden today, which is only 30 minutes from my country garden, when I noticed that she has so much more blooming than I do right now. Her garden got the same frost mine did a week or so ago yet all of my Geranium frosted off and all of hers are alive and doing well. Her sideyard has always been very protected between her house and the neighbours so I was not surprised to see not one, but two, Clematis blooming there with more Geranium. Her Gladiolus are all starting to open and mine frosted off along with all of my Dahlia. She did lose her Dahlia to the frost. I think the biggest difference is the concrete. The City is so full of buildings and sidewalks and road that they hold all the heat so her garden is often a few degrees warmer than mine even if the City temperature at the airport, where they take the temperature reading, is the same as mine. All of the things blooming in her garden have not made me want to move back to the City but they have made me wonder if I couldn't create some protected areas here that would save some things from those early but light frosts that we can get in Saskatchewan. At the very least, I think I will spend some time thinking about that this winter.

Stretching the Boundaries

In response to Danielle's post 'Outside my Zone':
Isn't it great to accomplish something that 'they' said couldn't be done?  To push the limits?  Kelly has actually tried to overwinter both a palm and a banana plant in our garden - with no success.  However I don't think he's completely given up on the idea.  This year I had a wonderful surprise.  The agapanthus that I planted in 2006 decided it was time to bloom!  The same year we also planted triteleia which has been blooming faithfully ever since.  Both of these are zone 7.  The packages said lift in fall and we didn't, so I threw away the tags over that winter.

Outside My Zone

When I first started gardening, I made what I think is the most common mistake of a new gardener. I believed that if my local greenhouses were selling a plant as a perennial, that it was perennial in this zone. Fortunately, it did not take me long to figure this out because I had a gardening mentor in my friend Judy and although I didn't always listen, she always had good advice. When I didn't listen, she would say, 'It never hurts to try' and when I failed, she would never say, 'I told you so'. Judy knew that when I wasn't listening, it was because I was so taken with a plant that only Mother Nature was going to stop me. As a fellow gardener, she understood. All those early mistakes put me in a place where I would not even think about planting any perennial outside my zone for several years. Slowly, I started to warm up to zone 4 perennials and now have several in my zone 3 garden. Some do just OK, like the Coral Bells 'Key Lime Pie'. Some never manage to gain a foothold like the Hydrangea 'Endless Summer' that started as a pair and have been killed off to a small piece of root I will mail to Linda and hope she can save. Others, however, like all of the lily, survive spectacularly well to reward me with a stunning display. There is a little extra mulching to do each Fall but mulching is probably the simplest chore in my garden. I read there is a little more work in the Spring to remove the extra mulch on zone 4 Iris. I don't do that for the lily but this year I added Iris outside my zone so I will have to start that next Spring if I want to see blooms. Each year, my bravery seems to grow in terms of what I will try. I do dig up and pass on when these experimental plants do not perform well for me. Mother Nature does always win and I find most often, it is not worth the fight. I would encourage other gardeners to try anything once. You never know what will establish and one zone opens up whole new plant possibilities. Just remember these two things: we all kill plants sometimes and it never hurts to try.