An old Norwegian gardener who sometimes gave talks abroad, used to take great joy in telling the them that; ”The problem with growing plants in Norway is not to get the plants to root into the glacier, but rather how to keep the polar bears from knocking them over”. It is off course not as bad as he made it out to be, and actually we don’t even have polar bears in Norway. What we do have on the other hand are freezingly cold winters. In the east country where I live it is not uncommon for winter temperatures to drop to – 20 C for severeal weeks at the time. This limits the range of plants we can grow, but it also offers opportunities for growing some real gems.

Snow can cover the garden from November – December to the beginning of April. Even though the snow acts as an insulating layer, keeping the worst of the frost of perennials and small shrubs, it also keeps most gardeners from getting round their gardens in winter time. It also keeps the bulbs and early perennials dormant, so that when spring finally arrives, it arrives with a bang.

Hardy bulbs will do very well in cold climates and comes into flower as soon as the snow melts. Because the winter is so long all norwegian gardener long for the first signs of spring, and what better to wait for than the many forms of crocus.

Summers are usually short and intense, so any possibilty of starting your annuals or containerplants inside or in a greenhouse wil greatly increase the flowering period. Dahlias are frost tender and has to be stored in a frost protected shed or basement over the winter here in Norway. Pot up the tubers in March – April and grow them on in a greenhouse before planting them out when the danger of late frost have passed in June. The dahlias will keep flowering from July – August and into September when the first frost usually puts and end to them.

One of the perks of gardening in a cold climate is that we can grow really good Meconopsis. The Blue Himalayan Poppy comes from the Himalayas and are accustomed to cold winters. Meconopsis baileyi is one of the more commonly grown of the big blue poppies and has large, sky blue flowers with petals almost like silk. Like all Meconopsis it enjoys a moist soil that never gets waterlogged. The Meconopsis genus comes in several different colours like red, purple, white, yellow and pink, but the blues are probably the most loved. And when it comes to blues the variety ’Jimmy Bayne’ is one of the most radiating blue we grow.

The cold temperatures in winter means that sometimes trees, shrubs and climbers get damaged. This happens quite frequently with severeal of the large flowered hybrids here. Because of this they never reach an impressive size. It is far better to grow the Viticella hybrids. They are extremely vigorous and bloom on first years growth, so even if they freeze back to ground level they will regrow in spring and bloom heavenly in late summer.

Tommy Tonsberg

Tommy Tonsberg lives and gardens in Norway where he is in the process of starting a plant nursery. He supplies both text and photos for severeal Norwegian publications and is the author of several gardening books.

View his collection on GAP Gardens by clicking here.