In the Oakland hills near the Berkeley border is Chapel of the Chimes, a columbarium. Renovated and expanded by Julia Morgan, the architect of Hearst Castle in San Simeon, it is a melding of Spanish and Gothic styles with arches, latticing and copious stained glass. I’ve been visiting since I was very young and it [...] read more

The street I grew up on was lined with Sycamore trees. Their leafy masses were a delight in summer and always produced some good-natured grumbling during fall raking. These were small city lots and as time moved on problems developed. Blocked sewer lines became common and sidewalks started to lift and shift, making walking difficult [...] read more

This spring, Ball Horticultural sent me some Dragon Wing Red Begonias to trial in my garden. My sister-in-law had told me that she dug up and potted her wax begonias, wintered them over as houseplants, and replanted them every spring, and this gave me the idea to try the same thing with these larger begonias. [...] read more

Mulch can kill trees–that sounds kind of extreme, doesn’t it? But it caught your attention, right? I suppose it would be more accurate to say improper mulching can kill trees, but as I look around me, improper mulching of trees seems to be the standard practice, the only kind of mulching around trees that’s being [...] read more

When we first started the process of buying our new house, I thought we’d be moving in August. In early July I started digging up colchicum corms as the leaves died down, indicating they were going dormant. It turns out the first date proposed for closing on a house is usually wildly optimistic, and my [...] read more

We. Are. MOVING!!! After 21 years, 9 months, 11 days* in the same location, Purdyville is relocating twenty minutes further out to the middle of nowhere. We are just about doubling our floor space, with 167% more bedrooms and 250% more bathrooms. Total acreage will be less than we currently have, but, trust me, there [...] read more

Today, Cold Climate Gardening turned nine years old. My very first blog post was a list of goals for this blog. After that, I didn’t mention my blogiversary until 2006, when I wrote a six part series on Garden Blog Pioneers in honor of my fourth blogiversary. The following year I invited my readers to [...] read more

Long time readers may remember Craig Levy, who wrote for this blog for a number of months, and then went on to other things. This spring he emailed me, asking, “Would you like more plants for your garden?” Knowing that Craig used to run a nursery when he and his wife lived on the western [...] read more

Fields and Lane contacted me several months ago to introduce me to their new line of gardening gloves. Nadia Ceballos-McLeod, general manager of the glove division, sent me two different gloves, the Flex Gardener and the Forester. If you attended the recent garden blogger meet-up, Seattle Fling, then you received a pair of Flex Gardeners [...] read more

Queen of the Prairie was introduced to my garden. The Gentleman Farmer found it growing in a roadside ditch about a quarter of a mile from our house and brought it home for me. Shortly after that, the road crew mowed the roadside down. I had previously grown this plant in the front southwest bed [...] read more