Re: [gardeners] yellow pear
Ron Hay (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Tue, 09 Apr 2002 07:45:15 -0700
Good morning, Penny,
New York may not be able to grow cherimoyas or macadamia, but you are
able to grow many wonderful things that are exotic to us in Southern
California: lilacs that smell like lilacs; wide varieties of tulips
without having to dig them up in the fall to refrigerate them; Norwegian
maples (a perennial favorite as a shade tree); 90% of the bulbs in most
catalogs (most require more chilling than we can muster, usually);
apples that taste like apples; and the list could go on indefinitely.
It's just a different gardening world, no better, no worse, and often
even more challenging, given the heat of the inland valleys in which
many of us live, or the cool dampness of the coastal regions in which
others of us live.
We also get into trouble by pushing the envelope as to what can really
grow here, both in the direction of tropicals, and in the direction of
those things that truly require more chilling in order to thrive.
And New York is every bit as beautiful as California. A New York
springtime is one of life's delights. The flowering cherries and other
fruit trees; the azaleas and rhododendrons (yep, can't really grow
rhodies, either); the forsythia. The blooms of spring in your neck of
the woods, Connecticut and Long Island, last year, when we were back to
L.I. for my reunion, were simply breathtaking.
We may have the Sierra, but the Catskills and Adirondacks are just as
beautiful, in their own right; we may have Lake Tahoe, but you have the
wonderful Finger Lakes, Great Lakes, Champlain and George, among scads
of other beautiful bodies of water. Again, California is in no way
better, just different. Having lived in both states a fair number of
years, I can appreciate both...but I fear my arthritis would no longer
appreciate NY winters as I once did:(
At any rate, it's time to get under way, to do some much-needed watering
of the fruit trees, so that they do not drop overmuch fruit and to clean
up fallen rose and iceland poppy petals.
Enjoy spring!
Ron