Around the Garden

 Planting peas on St. Patrick’s Day always seemed to me like a risky venture – certainly it was the one time I tried it. Scuffling through the snow to drop dried peas in the ground was no fun, and it came to naught. This year, it might have been a great idea, but we won’t know  until we are well past the freak snowfall period.

The past week’s unseasonable weather has surely brought out a bounty of buds and flowers. My young fig tree, sequestered in the garage, produced swollen buds overnight. Daffodils which often aren’t open until mid-April are fully in bloom. Yet other plants that are regular harbingers of spring are still sulking: the shadblow and the PJM rhododendron are showing little sign of waking up.

The huge saucer magnolia in front of the old Middlesex Mutual headquarters on Court Street is almost ready to open its fat buds – pink is clearly showing on one side. I’ve taken many pictures of its glory in the past, always in late April.

Just recently, the USDA finally introduced the latest Plant Hardiness Map of the U.S., the first official update in over twenty years. Middletown and most of Middlesex County have been moved from Zone 6a to 6b, meaning that the Average Annual Extreme Minimum Temperature has retreated from -10 degrees Fahrenheit to -5 degrees Fahrenheit. This isn’t exactly new news – the map is based on data collected from 1976 to 2005. Of course, I vividly remember some -10 nights in that time period, so, as always, it’s well to remember that key word “Average.”

If you are a really diligent gardener, you may wonder why the hardiness zone map focuses on low temperatures. After all, there are lots of plants that tolerate our low temperatures, but hate our summers. The most common hemlock in these parts is the Tsuga canadensis, which is much happier a few zones to our north. Our state tree, (and stateliest tree), the white oak, is thought to be under stress from our hot summers. Both of these trees may prove to be bad planting choices over the next few decades. And, considering that trees are usually planted for the long haul, and considering that they are often a substantial investment, this will be a significant issue.

Perhaps this is a cynical answer, but I think the reason is that too much cold kills a plant quickly, while too much heat kills so slowly that the correct diagnosis may be missed. A tree that fails to thrive during its first year in the ground may be written off as a bad planting job, or “the wrong tree in the wrong place.” If, in fact, it was a tree that doesn’t tolerate 90+ days, the homeowner likely will be none the wiser, and won’t complain to the nursery that provided the tree.

As always, remember to ask questions of your nursery salesperson if you are buying a plant you have never grown before. How long have they carried this plant? Where was it grown? (A large percentage of nursery stock is shipped here from places with wildly different climates, such as the West Coast.) The bigger the investment, the more important it is to use all your resources, including the internet. For example, so far, I have seen only one newspaper article about the presence in Connecticut of the Boxwood blight – and yet the nation’s leading researcher is right here, at the CT Agricultural Experiment Station. This very nasty fungal disease has been identified at nurseries in four counties, including Middlesex.

But enough doom and gloom! If you have planted peas – or anything else – as of St. Patrick’s Day, please let me know how it goes!