High Elevation Gardening Web Log "Blog"

Another test of tenacity and ongoing satisfaction has been the little spruce across the street from my residence, which has suffered from years of drought and its location on a shallow, ancient lava flow. Doomed to an arborist's saw in 2007, it was brought back to life after almost a year by topping (removing the dead central branch) and winter watering, a credit to my neighbor's patience and her faith in my Master Gardener training. What a gift to see it draped in tiny white lights this past Christmas, which, when viewed from my home, looked like angel wings.

Gardening in a four-season climate on the Colorado Plateau gives us a respite between January and March, time to cruise the seed and garden gadget catalogs or launch that garden journal. Gardening also teaches us that nature cannot be hastened, that the law of the harvest is in effect. While gardens and landscapes are entombed in snow and ice, consider freeing a latent gardening gene or training that brown thumb to be green.

Sign up for one of Kim Costion's agricultural courses at Coconino Community College, enroll in the spring 2009 Master Gardener program offered jointly through the University of Arizona and the Coconino County Extension, or study gardening books and websites, much as Chuck McDougall and his wife Denise do as part of their remarkable stewardship of Mountain Meadow Farm.

Find out about Flagstaff's and the surrounding areas' microclimates, and why plants, grasses, and trees that sprawl effortlessly outside in our former hometowns in the South or Southern California, like geraniums, bougainvillea, or citrus, will curl up their botanical toes if we subject them to the same gardening practices here. Unearth information about area soils (what soil?), regional geology, and climate change. Look into activities offered by the Arboretum at Flagstaff. Learn why local gardeners are not usually seduced by our March pseudo spring into planting anything but pansies and other cold hardy plants until late May or early June, sorely tempted though we may be. Discover or rediscover what Victory Gardens are, why they are making a comeback, and how to adapt them to our high altitude environment.

Crunching past garden vignettes gone dormant, I was reminded of the antique car show I attended at City Hall this past summer. The infinite care and the untold amounts of time it took to turn obsolete, rusted junk heaps into gorgeous works of serviceable art is truly love made manifest. Gardening is no different. Removing wind blown trash from public areas, helping neighbors weed or shovel snow, sharing the bounty of our vegetable gardens, seed swapping, giving or receiving gardening advice, or taking classes, brings people together who may not do so otherwise - the essence of community.

From now until spring, arctic winds will blast the countryside, roaring down from the Peaks and tumbling over the ocean of giant pines that surrounds Flagstaff, sometimes laden with snow, but many times not, making even the most dedicated of gardeners wonder if winter will ever end. It always does.

Freddi Steele is a Master Gardener volunteer and a former naturalist with the National Park Service. Dana Prom Smith is a Master Gardener volunteer and the coordinating editor for the Master Gardener Column. He can be contacted at stpauls@npgcable.com. For more information about the Master Gardener Program, call Hattie Braun at 774-1868 ext.17 or visit our Web Site: highelevationgardening.arizona.edu.