Cold Frame from Pine Needle bales

This is the simple little cold frame I've been using to keep my plants in good shape until it warms up just a bit more. I've used a sewing cutting pad (made of semi-sheer white plastic) as a top when temperatures have required - an old window frame makes a great top too.

I just heard we're expecting to have a warm end to the month, so hopefully I'll be able to put some of these guys in the ground soon. I've got marigold, cupid's dart, crape myrtle and a few different kinds of pepper seedlings I'd like to move into the cold frame. It's a lot and I still haven't sprouted my tomatoes yet! Yikes - gotta get a move on!

Jetfire Daffodils

Jet fire daffodils have a fabulous profile. Here they are surrounding an Abraham Darby rose that is just starting to set out leaves. Next season I'll create a large daffodil patch around my flowering quice. I'm thinking of trying some of the 'orangerie' daffodils.

As we've had lots of vole problems, I'm trying to scatter daffodils and flowering onions throughout the landscape - they seem to dislike these. I've also been using 'vole-block' in my soil mix. It helps create better drainage in my very clay soil as well as discouraging those varmits!

Harmony Iris

I mixed some of these short little irises behind my grape hyacinth (muscari). They are similar size and color so add some depth and texture. The foliage of the muscari went dormant last year in the hottest part of the summer, then regrew in the fall. It looked good most of the winter, getting only minor cold damage.

Pickwick Crocuses, Pink Heath and Daffodils

I began gardening in North Carolina just a few years ago. I have only a little previous experience dabbling in dirt (I grew mainly tomatoes in Boston back in 1988, thereabouts). We moved to this place in Burlington, North Carolina in March of 2002. The house is an old one (1930s) on the top of a hill in a usually quiet neighborhood.


The yard had been long neglected when we purchased the place, so the first couple of years were spent pulling overgrown ivy off of trees and hacking back thorny thickets of wild raspberries. Now I've been creating flower beds and planting bushes for a little bit and am hoping to organize and record some of it all here. The arrival of spring in the North Carolina Piedmont seems like a good place to start.