Tomato in the snow?

After a snowstorm, you expect to see scallions poking out the snow. You’re not even all that surprised to find snapdragons cheerily smiling at you. But a tomato plant should not be looking frisky when a couple inches of wet snow melts away. Nor should you be glimpsing red under the vines. So you can […]

Scragglions

The storm was not very nice to my cold weather plants. The snapdragons are munged, the collards are covered, and the scallions are barely hanging in there, all scraggly on top of the snow. I’m sure the scallions will be fine, and the snapdragons will grow back. But I worry about the collards up on […]

Cold customers

The cold snap has melted, but there’s some still greenery in the garden. The snapdragons are looking a bit water-logged, but they’re standing up to the rain. With flowers even. Scallions are on the march. And the collards looked a bit lumpen this morning, but perked up by the afternoon. These guys can really tough […]

Fall colors

Here’s some random colors from pink to red. Most are the usual suspects for autumn, from pink snapdragons to orange euonymous fruits to red Alpine strawberries back after the heat for an encore. And every year my warm spot for tomatoes shelters them way longer than you might expect. Yes, we have tomatoes!

Return of the Wool Carder bee

Another bee that I’ve been looking for has turned up: the Wool Carder bee. They’re called Wool Carders because the females gather the fuzz from hairy leaves to line their nests. Like the honeybee, they’re not natives, but an introduced bee from Europe. Unlike the honeybee, they tend to stick to Old World flowers. Mine […]

May sprouts

In the sunny patch where the tulips and daffodils live, all the bulbs have laid down their leaves in a slowly, yellowing mess. I’m of the school that believes in letting the leaves ripen and dry up, so the bulbs can store up food for next year, which means it’s a mess right now. That […]

Snapdragons snap back

I know snapdragons can tough it out, even if they look frozen, but it startles me every time. This time, they got well covered in snow, and last night they got well washed by a good strong rain overnight. Now they look downright perky. I know snapdragons are tough, but are they crazy enough to […]

The cringe before the storm

Every time I see the twisted frozen leaves of the various plants that have succumbed to the cold, I want to cringe. They may be plants, but that looks painful. Don’t worry, sad, dead, snapdragon. Soon you will be covered with drifts and drifts of snow. Time to hunker down.

Surviving, thriving, staying aliving

Spring continues to reveal more survivors. This mound of Bleeding Heart not only survived being dug up and moved, it’s about twice as big as it was last year.

Snapdragons

The snapdragons have been flowering for about a month now. I’ve been leaning in to get a whiff of their bubblegum / tutti frutti scent from time to time. And then I saw the weirdest bee. This was right after Readercon, so finding out what it was sort of got lost in the shuffle. And […]