It’s December 31; the last day of 2021. The sun rises late in the morning and hugs the southern horizon. The thermometer reads -30 degrees C (21 below zero F). Snow has covered the ground since early November and successive snows ensure that the landscape and all the projects that didn’t get done will remain buried until March or April.
The fields of Rhodiola started getting ready for a long winter’s dormancy in August. Their leaves and stems dried in the cooling days of late summer’s drought. Rhodiola never seems to get caught by early freezes, and prepares the next year’s growth nodes before the long winter slumber – always optimistic for the next growing season to come.
The Alberta winters mimic those in Siberia. This year it seems the cold air masses have moved from Siberia and have settled into Alberta. Someday the cold air will push on south and our neighbors in the USA will grumble about another ‘Alberta Clipper’ freezing their pipes and turning vehicles into temporary lumps of cold dead steel.
Alberta’s 8 months of winter are perfect for Rhodiola rosea. We live in Hardiness Zone 2 on the growing charts. An area designed for cold weather plants, and Rhodiola rosea calls this home.
Alberta is its adopted home, though. Rhodiola is native to the East Coast of Canada and the far northern portions of the Territories. In general, Rhodiola rosea grows in the northern circum-polar regions around the world, and raising it in Alberta’s climate has worked successfully for the last 15 years. Amid the challenges involved in growing Rhodiola, we are thankful for its rugged cold-tolerant beauty.
