Gardening for Climate Change
This past winter was a tough one in our backyard. Where we live, about a hundred miles inland from the South Carolina coast, winter is normally a good time to make changes, like the swath of turf I removed from our front yard this year and replaced with perennial flowers and small tufts of native grass. But what is normal now in the garden? One week I’m sweating, the bees are buzzing, buds are breaking; the next, the birdbath is frozen and there’s snow on the ground.
Time and again, I found myself translating ominous weather reports into frantic activity. With night falling and my headlamp illuminating specks of wind-driven sleet, I climbed a ladder to bundle frost cloth around fruit trees in bloom, then heaped pine straw mulch over tender sprigs of new growth on our native rabbiteye blueberries, trying to save our garden from the polar vortex.… Seguir leyendo »