FAQ

Very early this morning, the temperature bottomed out at 18F, so my max-min thermometer tells me. And yet, when I looked out my window, there was not a speck of frost on the grass. If I hadn't consulted the thermometer, I would have thought it was a lovely spring day out there. (The grass has [...]

The new hardiness map put out by the USDA is not going to help you at all if you've been gardening in the same spot for any length of time with your eyes open and your mind engaged. Let's face it: common sense and experience will trump aggregated data every time. It doesn't matter what [...]

Stumbled across a link to an excellent synopsis of frost and its effects via @urbangarden. If you don't have a copy of A Gardener's Guide to Frost, this is the next best thing.

Don't get me wrong--I love snowdrops, winter aconites, crocus and all the very earliest bloomers that signal the end of winter's dominion. But here in the land of late and unseemly freezes, plants that emerge later have the advantage. Those poor 'Black Beauty' lilies in the photo above were seduced by the atypical but not [...]

What happens when the snow melts in the middle of winter? I made a brief video to show you: Some roads and a few low bridges have flooded, forcing early school closings and rerouting traffic. A thaw in January is common, but rain doesn't always accompany it. Sometimes it is brilliantly sunny, inspiring snowball fights [...]

I was just reading Graham Rice's musings on plants that grow in the coldest climates. He observed that the resources he consulted did not agree on which plants were tough enough to take USDA zone 2. If you've been gardening for any length of time (which of course Graham has), this won't surprise you. First, [...]

Last night the National Weather Service issued a frost advisory for our area, and we did indeed get a frost. They are issuing a freeze warning for tonight. What's the difference? I contacted a member of the local weather station staff. He told me that Both [the frost advisory and the freeze warning] are only [...]

In Part 1 I mentioned the two hard frosts and a freeze we had recently, all of them rather later in the season than is typical. I illustrated how different species in the same genus reacted to the freeze differently, and also gave examples of plants that were damaged even though they were protected. Sometimes [...]

Part of what makes my cold climate garden cold is the fact that we live in the bottom of a valley, and cold air flows downhill and settles all around us. So however cold the weatherman predicts it will get, it's usually colder here. Often, ten degrees colder. For example, on May 12th, when a [...]