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Wow! Talk about the questions ;-)...I'll try to answer a few...This is fun!
First, let me say, I am not an authority on Zone 1 growing and no, I am not by any means the only one growing up here. Gardening is very big in several parts of AK, though I'm guessing it gets even more challenging once you get much more than 50 miles north of me...I guess I'm the only gardener in Zone 1 addicted to Dave's Garden though. There are other DG'ers from AK but they are hundreds of miles south of me.
When I started gardening up here, it was a case of ignorance is bliss. While vegetable gardens are the primary choice in my area, I only grow flowers. DH works in Louisiana (2 weeks gone/2 weeks home--another story) and I can only eat so many veggies so flowers became my addiction.
I am always the oddball in that while we can grow many perennials, I like the options for changing things each year that annuals, tubers and bulbs give me. Though they are an incredible amount of work. I am at a place in my life and with a Wonderful Enabler so I can indulge in the time involved.
Today I shoveled a path to our unheated greenhouse to get the stuff to start WS'ing this week. Next week I'll start a very few of the seeds inside that are pokey growers. Am attempting to hold off till March on staggering all the other seeds, bulbs/tubers that will be started in the garage. I'm still trying to find that happy medium between having to baby these grown too big plants in the garage in May and not having them ready to bloom once they go outdoors the first week of June. Our "safe to go outside" is generally recognized as June 1. (Though we had snow on June 4, 3 years ago) The days are endless sun, but summer is considered over August 30. So about 90 days outside and my game plan is to have full bloom of something for those 90 days to get through the never-ending winter. Many of you asked about seasons, etc. Spring and Fall are about 3 weeks each. The rest is short summer/long winter. Summer temps are utopia at a very dry average of 70-75 during the day, 65ish at night (with full sun). We'll occasionally touch 80 degrees, which to us is miserabley hot. I am situated between two mountain ranges so there's no wind, unless we get a quick thunder-boomer moving through.
Personally I grow, lilies, dahlias, delphiniums, pansies, gladiolas, daisys, yes-I have a couple of toddler lilac bushes, clematis (which had the audacity to come out of dormancy early) and an assortment of every type of what is always an annual up here that I think is pretty or odd. Peony's are popular but I haven't attempted them (yet). Someone asked about roses. There are many areas "in the hills" where it is warmer and they have some success overwintering roses. The only ones I can overwinter are rugosas which I don't care for. So I buy roses at the box store and they are happy for the short time they need to be.
Here's a link some of you may find interesting: http://www.uaf.edu/snras/gbg/pubs/publications.html
At some point, I'll post pics of the light set up My Honey created for me in the garage. The kicker is: We have a two car garage. Once I commit to My Side of the garage being turned into the Gardening Annex, his vehicle stays nice, toasty and snow-free till around May 1, when I can convince him to park it outside because I also need His Side. Last year I made the commitment to park outside too early. I spent April frequently clearing snow off an SUV while he kept reminding me that his truck and my green babies were quite comfortable inside...
This message was edited Feb 16, 2009 10:26 PM
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