AT THE END of the gardening season, I like to look back at what went right and wrong. Last November I determined that the 2021 growing year was a very good but somewhat strange one here in southern New England. Here are my observations, with hopes they might inform 2022’s gardening efforts as the season ramps up.
FLOWERS AND FIGS
My hydrangeas (and everyone else’s) were fabulous in quantity, color and bloom time, which normally begins here around Independence Day. In 2021, it came a good two weeks earlier. This was true of old-fashioned ‘Nikko Blue’, assorted everblooming types and even my prized rosy-red ‘Glowing Embers’ variety. Many of my gardening friends said that they had never had such a great hydrangea season, ever. We’ll see what happens this year.
Another 2021 surprise came from my fig ( ‘Brown Turkey’). I have had this multistemmed bush for about 20 years and I’ve always been grateful for the 20 or so figs it provided in both spring and fall. The fall crop has proven somewhat frustrating, because our first frost typically hits while the plant still holds dozens of almost-ready figs, and
