The Weekly Gardener Volume 15: January to December 2021

By Francis Rosenfeld

Collected articles from The Weekly Gardener - January through December 2021.
For current articles visit The Weekly Gardener website.
I wanted to assemble an informal compendium of the things I learned from my grandfather, wonderful books, educational websites, and my own experience, in the hope that other people might find it useful in their own gardening practice.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Francis Rosenfeld
• Release date: Feb 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005404994

Francis Rosenfeld

I started learning about gardening from my grandfather, at the age of four. Despite his forty years' experience as a natural sciences teacher, mine wasn't a structured instruction, I just followed him around, constantly asking questions, and he built up on the concepts with each answer.As I grew older I applied this knowledge, experimented with new plants and learned a few things from my mistakes. That was fifteen years ago, and since then I was blessed with a thriving perennial garden. Half way through the journey, the micro-farm concept developed, a yearly challenge to figure out how much produce twenty square feet of dirt can yield.I started blogging in 2010, to share the joy of growing all things green and the beauty of the garden through the seasons. Two garden blogs were born this way: allyeargarden.com and theweeklygardener.com, a periodical that followed it one year later. I wanted to assemble an informal compendium of the things I learned from my grandfather, wonderful books, educational websites, and my own experience, in the hope that other people might find it useful it in their own gardening practice.The blogs contain many stories (I am a writer and couldn't help myself), but also practical information about plant propagation, garden maintenance, working with your site, making preserves and keeping the yard welcoming for beneficial insects and local wildlife.

Book preview

THE WEEKLY GARDENER 2021

by Francis Rosenfeld

© 2022 Francis Rosenfeld

Smashwords Edition

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Week 1 - December 28 - Wrapping It Up

Week 2 - January 4th - A Garden for All Seasons

Week 3 - January 11th - Heavenly Scent

Week 4 - January 18th - Time to Start a Garden

Week 5 - January 25th - In the Dead of Winter

Week 6 - February 1st - Six More Weeks

Week 7 - February 8th - Happy Time

Week 8 - February 15th - 1 Fahrenheit

Week 9 - February 22nd - Greenery

Week 10 - March 1st - Unexpected Beauty

Week 11 - March 8th - Early Spring Flowers

Week 12 - March 15th - Baby Garden

Week 13 - March 22nd - Finally Spring

Week 14 - March 29th - April Weather

Week 15 - April 5th - Spring Has Sprung

Week 16 - April 12th - Enchanted Forest

Week 17 - April 19th - April 21st

Week 18 - April 26th - Back to Normal

Week 19 - May 3rd - May Flowers

Week 20 - May 10th - Waiting for Summer

Week 21 - May 17th - The Well Tempered Garden

Week 22 - May 24th - Roses for Every Purpose

Week 23 - May 31st - All the Flowers of Spring

Week 24 - June 7th - Flowers in the Rain

Week 25 - June 14th - Beginning Summer

Week 26 - June 21st - Beautiful Wilderness

Week 27 - June 28th - After the Solstice

Week 28 - July 5th - In Color

Week 29 - July 12th - Midsummer Garden Maintenance

Week 30 - July 19th - Plants and Myths

Week 31 - July 26th - Field Patterns

Week 32 - August 2nd - Wild Stories

Week 33 - August 9th - Flowers for Summer and Fall

Week 34 - August 16th - The Winter Pantry

Week 35 - August 23rd - White Flower Perfume

Week 36 - August 30th - September Quiet

Week 37 - September 6th - Plant Propagation

Week 38 - September 13th - Stepping Into Fall

Week 39 - September 20th - The Fruits of the Earth

Week 40 - September 27th - October Calendar

Week 41 - October 4th - Changing With The Season

Week 42 - October 11th - The Colors of Fall

Week 43 - October 18th - Cool and Bright

Week 44 - October 25th - Extending the Season

Week 45 - November 1st - Classic Garden Designs

Week 46 - November 8th - Growing Vegetables

Week 47 - November 15th - Season's End

Week 48 - November 22nd - Fall Cheer

Week 49 - November 29th - Early Winter

Week 50 - December 6th - Watching the Seasons

Week 51 - December 13th - Sleepy Garden

Week 52 - December 20th - Growing Fruit

WEEK ONE

December 28th - Wrapping It Up

Winter Day in the Mist

It didn't feel like year's end when I got out into the garden yesterday, more like an unfinished story with many chapters yet to be written, a story abandoned somewhere in the fall and which left the latter's warm and humid environment behind.

The air, heavy with moisture, coated my skin and lungs like a balm, muffling sounds and creating halos around things, dimming the light to help nature rest.

A little cardinal came to keep me company, and it too was quiet, reluctant to disturb the surreal peace of the mist.

I felt like I accidentally walked into a fairy tale, or another world, lured by the wet scent of the clouds and the warm fog touching my cheeks.

It's so beautiful, nature, even when it's sound asleep, under a soft winter rain.

The most beautiful moments in the garden always come as an unexpected gift.

The rain turned to snow in the early hours of the morning. We are in winter, after all.

Thoughts Before the New Year

I spent the last day of December in quiet reflection, making wishes for the new year and reluctantly looking back at the old, not sure what to make of its mix of chaos, sorrow, renewed hope and blessings, confused between gratitude and dismay.

This year reminded me to live, and in all its mundane and forgettable activities it wasn't wasted.

During the sudden retreat from our regular pursuits so many things have changed so dramatically our social expectations became unrecognizable.

I know this is traditionally the time for resolutions, but I think I'll keep reflecting for a while instead. Somehow next year doesn't seem like the kind you plan for.

Generational events leave indelible marks on the soul and I don't know how this one shaped my future, I guess I'll just have to live through it to find out, and I'm grateful for being able to do that.

Maybe that is the one thing worth remembering at the end of this year.

Spring Planning

There is one thing I can anticipate - I will start lots of annuals from seed this year.

February needs its little flats of greenery and I need the excitement of watching fledgling seedlings find their way out into the world. I guess I should start shopping now; choosing annuals for next year's garden is serious business.

About the Weather

Weather lore says acorns dropping in great numbers point to a harsh winter, and I saw a lot of them this year.

The long range weather predictions agree, even though the first week of January, which usually brings the lowest temperatures of the year, is shaping up to be unseasonably warm.

WEEK TWO

January 4th - A Garden for All Seasons

The Flowers of Spring

If you want a spring garden, don’t skimp on the fall planting, because all the early bloomers need to overwinter in the ground to build up their strength.

Spring color is brought mainly by the bulbs, which sadly get spent or eaten over a couple of seasons. Naturalizing bulbs? Ah, sure. Between the plants depleting their energy reserves and the squirrels and rabbits feasting on their tender bulbs during the cold season, consider planting bulbs every year. Yes, even daffodils, I don’t know what’s eating those, but I saw the evidence.

Hyacinths, daffodils, tulips, alliums, lilies, crocuses, irises, don’t worry you might have too many, just keep planting them if you want to see flowers come spring.

Some veterans of the spring garden, like the hellebores, the clematis, the peonies, the coral bells, the bleeding hearts and the sweet violets do return year after year, and they have a blooming season that is long enough to smooth out the transition from spring to summer.

They provide the background for a quickly shifting landscape, which gives every spring flower a chance to shine unchallenged.

The primroses, bugleweeds, dead nettles, candytuft, pinks, columbines, spurge, sweep before your eyes, blooming profusely for a couple of weeks and then leaving the stage to the next protagonist.

Summertime

There is a very special time, right around the summer solstice, when nature reaches the peak of its glory, and the garden turns into a paradise of color and fragrance.

At the beginning of July perennials seems to synchronize their bloom, and not with the shyness of the early spring either, but with an exuberant and excessive abandon that is patently sinful.

Ah, the daisies, the roses, the lilies, the yarrow, the black eyed Susans, the daylilies, the tall phlox, the bee balms, the hollyhocks, the dahlias, the bellflowers, the zinnias, the irises, they’re all coming together in an overwhelming affirmation of life.

Add to this the brightness of the sun at the height of its power, and you got a favorite season.

It doesn’t stop with the perennials either: all the annual flowers, which continue to bloom until frost, are starting to open around this time too.

The garden turns, almost