Flowers Between the Frosts: How to Grow Great Gardens in Short SeasonsFlowers Between the Frosts: How to Grow Great Gardens in Short SeasonsBy Dorothy Collins, garden writer of the Red River Valley
Dorothy Collins must have liked a challenge. She became one of the Upper Midwest’s first female news writers. And living in one of the country’s toughest climates, she launched a column about gardening.
Her career as a writer and editor in Fargo, N.D., and Moorhead, Minn., lasted more than a half century. She produced many thousands of news and feature stories, plus some 2,800 garden columns.
The “strange twists” of northern climate gardening, as she called it, fascinated her to the very end of her life, as it fascinates so many of us. This practical book helps us garden better. Collins tackles just about everything, from annuals to wildflowers, from houseplants to herbs, from fruit to nurseries.
We have the opportunity to test our knowledge with horticulture quizzes, to plant by the signs of the zodiac, and to meet Mr. Greensnoop for some tough-love gardening advice.
“Did you ever think about the peace that is in the garden?” she wrote early in her career. “You can find there the same kind of tranquility as does a child who lies upon the grass in summer, gazing dreamily at the fluffy clouds floating lazily across the sky. Remember?”
Dorothy Collins, Flowers Between the Frosts: How to Grow Great Gardens in Short Seasons. Fargo: North Dakota Institute for Regional Studies, 2012. Softcover, $14.95.
Note: All profits from the sale of this book will help to fund student scholarships through the Dorothy Collins Memorial Endowment.
To order online or by mail: NDSU Institute for Regional Studies Press, North Dakota State University, Box 2360, P.O. Box 6050, Fargo, ND 58108-6050. Shipping is $4 for one, and $1 for each additional book.