Clematis: All Flowers Great and Small

Right now I’d much rather talk about Clematis.

Pretty darn spectacular this year!

Sometimes plant breeders would rather work with native plants than develop bigger dahlias – quiet cheering from behind the potting shed. Tailored natives are super useful in putting together a low maintenance garden. They are tough, deer don’t much like them, and are wonderfully serene.

Surely the seed companies are not holding their breath waiting for my mingy* order. It’s time to hustle, though, or the good stuff will be sold out.

‘Round about this time of year I start to feel that I’m ready to glue my wallet shut. Enough! my inner Scotswoman screams. I know that come spring I will be yearning for every enticing green bauble that is on the market; but this is now, this is January, and I am so over it!

A disaster can be an opportunity to learn from our mistakes. Snow before Halloween? What a mess, misery for so many.

What can make a gardener miserable? Pervasive pollen. Potent pollen. Particle counts off-the-chart high. I was stuck in the air conditioning for much of the summer. Me! Misery!

Is it worth all the work that goes into a vegetable garden? Is it worth your financial investment?

What about farm shares, and farmer’s markets?

Like every other gardening question the answer is: it depends.

During the Dog Days at the beginning of August….

“Where the ‘eat would make your bloomin’ eyebrows crawl”.1

Yes it rained, never enough, or too much.

Down and dirty in the garden means: crawling around muddying your knees, sometimes laying in the dirt, often getting it in your hair and doing bad things to your shoes.

Snip…gotcha, poke me in the eye, will you. Ooof, this is just trouble waiting to happen, where’d I put that pruning saw?