After 20 years, the USDA has confirmed what I have suspected for the last year or so. Southern New Hampshire is now Zone 6a with pockets of 6b. I now live one hardiness zone from Middle Tennessee, where I lived for almost 40 years.
Last Saturday I, and Marian, another Goffstown Historical Society volunteer, went over in 50 degree weather to put away our ceramic planters for the winter.
And where was winter? A good question since we found dandelions blooming in the lawn-
The weather ahead till the year turns is days in the 40s and the 50s, doubtless abetted by the warm western winds of the weather phenomenon “El Nino”, the “Christ Child”.
What will we able to grow now? The hardier Crape Myrtles from the National Arboretum?
Hardier camellias? Will we be able to deeply cover our cannas with mulch after planting them in a sun trap against the stone foundation on the south side of our house? I would be happy if I see the Hardy Begonia grandis come up this spring along the granite posts in my courtyard.
Meanwhile, in the wildflower border I call the “Sandbox” flocks of juncos are knocking seed heads off the withered goldenrods and the prairie golden asters I grow there. This border looks a mess, but is a free birdfeeder. I no longer have a conventional feeder since my landlords banned peanuts and sunflower seeds after a vagabond family of Norway rats tried to move in. I do not think the rats walked here from Goffstown. I think they hitched in one of the myriad delivery trucks that swarm even these rural roads like a swarm of beetles.
*** The phot above is of my sister this past October at the Heritage Gardens on Cape Cod.
Gardening On Granite 