4/1/08

Normally I’m a stay-at-home girl, but occasionally I have cause to travel. Over the past week, separate outings took me to the wetlands of Lake Champlain; the banks of major rivers through Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut; up and over Vermont’s Green Mountains and Massachusetts’ Berkshire Hills; and through the rolling terrain of Connecticut to the shore of Long Island Sound.

Less than 300 miles as the crow files. But a textbook illustration of microclimates.

In general, the trend was white in the north to golden brown in the south, as one would expect. However, the graduation was not smooth. With a small rise or dip in altitude, the snow cover appeared or disappeared. Likewise, around a corner or through a ravine, clear land suddenly became snowy, and vice versa. Acres of sunny open fields would contain, inexplicably, a wide patch of white. Waterways flowed clear for part of their course then were frozen over for the next part.

Settled areas held the same pattern. One yard would be starting to green up and featured blooming crocuses; across the street, or maybe even next door, the grass was still sere and snow filled the backyard. In some wet areas, shrubs and trees glowed red, yellow, or green in their terminal branches, getting ready to bud; while other wet areas remained gray and brown, their branches ready to snap at the slightest pressure.

Such pockets of different light and temperature can challenge (or torment!) gardeners. Perhaps the single best investment of time you can make in garden planning is learning the microclimates of your own environment. Most gardening how-to books emphasize soil as the biggest influence on plant quality. I agree with its importance but would put microclimates at the top of the list.

You can have great soil but if there’s not enough sunlight, or if that patch of great soil doesn’t emerge from under the snow cover until 3 weeks after the rest of the yard, or there is too much wind or water, good soil won’t be able to do its job. Besides, you can do a lot to improve soil quality but not so much to change the lay of the land (unless you enjoy working with bulldozers and chain saws!).

Siting a garden in the correct place, and populating it with plants which like that environment, always gets better results than arbitrary planting — and takes a lot less work! So knowing your microclimates will help make gardening a pleasure you’ll return to year after year.

Carolyn Haley
Author: Open Your Heart with Gardens