Gardener of the North

My sister, Pat, has lived in Fairbanks, Alaska for over 30 years. This is the first time we have had the opportunity to come up north to visit her!

She is Professor of Horticulture at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. She created the Georgeson Botanical Garden on the campus grounds. It is all covered with snow now, but we know that in a few months it will be ablaze with a riot of color. She does experiments with plants to see if they can survive the climate in Alaska. The hot news for her garden is that the gorgeous flowers called peonies grow beautifully in Alaska. They flower in July, which is the only place on Earth that has peonies blooming then. She is working with Alaska growers to start planting peonies. They can sell them world-wide for as much as $35 a stem! --Very popular for weddings around the world!

Another project in the works is the creation of a children's garden. One part of the garden is a huge garden maze in the shape of petals of a flower. Construction of the maze will be complete at the end of this summer. The bushes used for the maze walls will be full-grown in 5-7 years.

This will be no ordinary maze. At each corner, she plans challenging activities and puzzles for families to complete. Keep this in mind if you ever come to Fairbanks on vacation!

We toured her greenhouses, saw where her garden pond goldfish spend the winter, and helped her plant some seeds for annual flowers for her plant sale in May.