We had our first light frost of the year here a few weeks early. It was 28°F on the morning of the Autumn Plant Fair. At home, I brought what I could and covered some of the things I hadn’t finished enjoying for the season, like my passion flowers that had just begun to bloom….
New gardeners like to complain about the weather. New Englanders like to complain about the weather, too, but this year, it really has been a perfect spring, at least in New England, and at least for plants. What is a “perfect spring”? A long, slow and gradual thaw with few extreme swings. I might add…
Onions and leeks are two beneficial crops from the start for a long time. The seeds are started under the lights in January, as they like bright light, and the house is moved to a cool greenhouse until the end of the Persephone season in mid-February. For bulb onions, if you start milking in the…
My new border garden is about as complete as it can be, but like all good garden designs, it takes a lot of time to develop the design. This urn is temporary until I find suitable objects to centre the design and still need to set out the walkway, will probably use gravel, pea stones…
This is my experience sharing about seed sowing, I hope it will be useful for flower lovers. Many herbs, such as thyme and hyssop, can be sown in winter, but they need a long, slow growing season, no sugar, bright light, so they must be sown under glass or light. 1. Don’t think that “climate”…
I came home last March and saw this bag in the fridge. It hadn’t been touched in years. I was curious if they would still grow. I have yet to find a good variety that I like to grow. I sometimes think of Grandpa’s peas, but I worry that they might fail here like so…
Last Friday night was one of the highlights of my life. The grand opening of our new 5,000 sq. ft. experimental garden in our arboretum, the Plantery. This project has been in the works since we applied for a $30,000 grant from the Centre for Applied Research and Rural Innovation last fall. We requested funds…
Remember the first time you saw Zaluziantkya – pronounce it in your head before daring to say it out loud. Once you’ve mastered the pronunciation of the word, you’ll love saying it over and over again like a two year old. And because the pronunciation is really funny, haha, you’ll impress your friends. Although Zaluzianskya…
For the past two years I have been experimenting with growing a variety of annual vines in containers, trying about 8-10 different varieties of the most common annual vines each year. As you may have discovered for yourself, annual vines like petunias, while beautiful and easy to germinate, can and do grow so fast and…
The rare yellow petunia Ipomoea hederifolia var. yellows was a new discovery for me this year. It does have yellow tubular flowers, which I love, but it quickly outgrew its container and I had to plant it in the garden.Spanish flag vine, always a favourite of mine. I mean, come on, Ober! It looks almost…
