The Cloche

Image Via "Its About Time" Blog

Spring has officially arrived even on our cool mountainside, and I have been busy planting the pots and flower beds.  Every day, I check the weather report because it is still possible there might be a late frost and I might have to move all the pots inside.  This coming Monday there is a light frost predicted. I would not have to do this if I would invest in a few cloches for my frost tender plants. 

In a previous post I showed you a little miniature potagere I found on Pinterest which included two tiny little wicker cloches.  A cloche is a covering for plants to protect them from extreme weather.  They can be made of glass which traps the heat and keeps the plants from freezing.

 Or they can be made from other materials such as wicker or willow to keep animals, such as rabbits, squirrels and deer from munching on new plants.  In our desert southwest these would also be useful to provide a little shade from our blazing hot sunshine.  They also provide some architectural interest to a garden as you can see in a previous post.

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Or they could be made of metal.  The weight of these would be helpful as the winds on our mountainside are likely to blow away a wicker cloche unless it were securely staked.

I am still kicking myself for not buying this one which I found in an antiques shop in Bernalillo.  I hesitated because it was missing some glass and I wondered if it would look odd to replace the old handblown glass in it with new glass.  While not truly a cloche, but more of a terrarium, it loosely fits the definition.

My sister, Rosalind, bought three tiny glass cloches on a trip to Williamsburg for my Hogwarts Miniature castle.  However, since her death last June, I have been  adding landscaping for her miniature Williamsburg dollhouses, so the cloches will be used in the potagere located behind the separate cookhouse.  The formal garden is almost complete but I am just beginning the kitchen or "potagere" garden for this estate.