Gardening in Alaska : Light up the night with ice

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Gardening in Alaska presents big challenges, whether it's the extra effort in finding plants tough enough to survive our Zone 2-4 climate, communicating with like-minded Alaska gardeners, or keeping up with the latest trends, issues and solutions. We'll try to help with that. We'll also tour gardens from Homer to Anchorage to Wasilla to Willow whenever we get the chance, and post the best garden photos around. Presenting a forum about cold-weather gardening and for cold-weather gardeners is what we are all about. We hope you'll join us on the Talk Dirt garden blog.

Photographer and gardener Fran Durner (fdurner@adn.com) writes the blog.

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Light up the night with ice

Posted by talkdirt

Posted: December 28, 2008 - 7:40 pm

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Ray and Jean Lee have made a tradition of lighting up their neighborhood with ice luminarias every winter. Fran Durner/ADNThere is something about turning the corner on winter that brings hope back to the gardener's life. Lengthening days and seed catalogs instead of holiday cards in the mailbox make the subzero weather easier to bear. But I do love to see the colorful lights that wind around trees and trim houses this time of year. And you don't get to see that in the summer.

A winter wonderland along Sheldon Jackson Drive off Lake Otis Parkway. Ray and Jean Lee have made a tradition of lighting up their neighborhood with ice luminarias every winter. Fran Durner/ADNAn impromptu drive with a friend after dinner last night brought us to a neighborhood off Lake Otis and the yard of Ray and Jean Lee that was warmly lit with 52 ice luminarias that Ray made. Set under snow-laden trees, it was a winter wonderland. Ray used five-gallon buckets and started back in October, making 30 candles at a time. After forming 442 candles, he called it quits. However, he gave most of the luminarias away to family and friends and neighbors to decorate their yards with.

An ice arrangement glows along the edge of Les Brake's Willow driveway in 2006. Stephen Nowers/ADNMaking ice luminarias is incredibly easy. You can use almost any shape container, and your creativity can take it from there. Gardener Les Brake in Willow uses dye in the water and forms sculptures with some of his.

Ice luminaria forms can be made from almost any container or can be bought from a retail store, like this star luminaria. Fran Durner/ADNI have a star form that was given to me as a gift but I also make luminarias from a combination of a yogurt container weighted with rock and set inside a large ice cream tub. The smaller container makes the well that holds the candle. After the water freezes, I bring the tubs inside for about a half hour or so to warm, and out slides the candle. This year I froze dried fireweed leaves into the ice. I think freezing mountain ash berries in the ice would be beautiful as well.Ice luminaria forms can be made from almost any containers, like these ice cream and yogurt containers. The smaller container, weighted with rocks, sits inside the larger one to form the candle well. Fran Durner/ADN

Part of getting through the winter dark is learning to enjoy the beauty that comes out of it. The snow- and frost-covered trees against an incredible blue sky and the warm glow of the holiday lights and luminarias are some of the things that work for me.Ice luminarias can be made in many shapes, sizes and colors. Berries and leaves can be frozen as decorations in the ice. Fran Durner/ADN