Gardening in America (and Britain)

People often ask me why fewer people garden in the States compared with Britain. There’s just one main factor: the climate.

This was brought home to me yesterday – here in PA we’ve had more than 3in/5cm of rain in the last twenty four hours, other parts of the country have had much more. Some have had snow. Aand we’re now in the second half of April. In one part of the garden the soil is still frozen down below so, because the water can’t drain away, puddles are forming in one border (those poor epimediums, cyclamen and daphne) and all along the side of a raised bed (see picture below).

This all comes at a time, after a long winter, when the hellebores are just struggling to open on stems about 4in/10cm high and the deciduous trees and shrubs have yet to sprout a leaf. And in the last month, plants have had the temperature go from 50F/10C to 20F/-6.5C in just twelve hours. They don’t like it. I expect a lot of losses, it doesn’t encourage people to grow plants. The garden centers in these parts shut up shop for months over the winter, and their owners head south with the birds.

Contrast this with my opening picture, taken a couple of days ago in our home town in England by my friend the artist Carol Parfitt. Looks good, doesn’t it? And contrast with my post about December flowers in south London. British gardeners, I might say, have been making lists of plants in flower on Christmas Day or New Year’s Day for hundreds of years.

But the fact that here in northern Pennsylvania, and many other parts of the country, the garden is entirely dormant for four or five winter months, often deep in snow, does not give gardeners much confidence. You can understand why lawns and tough evergreens are so popular. The one good thing is that when spring comes it often warms up quickly, so flowers that would be spread over two or three British months make a sparkling display over just a few weeks.

But now, just as I’m about to post this, guess what. It’s 8.30am in the morning, it’s blowing a gale and it’s snowing again. It’s enough to freeze the buds off a hellebore.

Comments

[Renee]

Gardening here is definitely NOT for sissies... does that make our occasional successes that much sweeter?

[Graham Rice]

It does... and it makes for occasional delightful surprises too when something thrives unexpectedly.

[Julie]

Relieved to hear you say so. I was beginning to think it was a matter of moral fiber -- or is that fibre?

Julie