Cold and Snow

The news are full of comments about how bad the weather has been in the northern hemisphere, particularly in the American Mid West and in Eastern Canada, and we wonder how the snow and very cold temperatures will affect ours gardens. Although the intense cold is not welcome, a great amount of snow is good for perennial plants, if not for humans.

A very snowy winter

Beyond hardiness zones

Hardiness zone maps are very useful, but they have to be taken with a grain of salt. If we think a plant could make it in our gardens, we should try it, regardless of what the hardiness map says. I am sure many of you grow plants that are not supposed to be hardy locally. This post is about some of my hardy plants. The most obvious is probably green lavender cotton (Santolina rosmarinifolia), which is supposed to survive in zone 7 to 9 and Roche fleurie is in zone 5 - in other words, our climate is much colder than Santolina is supposed to be able to take.

Green Lavender Cotton and thyme