Winter-hardy Perennials
How well did your garden make it through the winter? Taking these five steps this spring will help protect your garden against Maine's harshest season.
By Rebecca Sawyer-Fay, photography by Kevin Shields
With winters that vary from brutal to benign, gardening in Maine can seem like a foolish pleasure. As the first shoots poke through the damp soil, gardeners inevitably find that a few of the perennials that had provided such a wonderful show last summer are conspicuously absent this spring. Evaluating such disappointments, most wonder: "Is it the weather, or did I do something wrong?"The answer is perhaps a bit of both, says Professor William Mitchell, coordinator of the landscape horticulture program at the University of Maine at Orono.
