The solar clothes dryer. Usually so efficient.
Not today.
The view from the henhouse door.
White lilacs. Not as pretty as Beauty of Moscow.
No barbecues on the piazza today.
Am I bitter? Who would say so?
What an election year! It is time to vote for the best in blogging and I am overwhelmed! I am new at this and I am so impressed by the thoughtful, informative and inspiring blogs that I have found in the past few months. How to choose the best? Or best photography? Or most innovative? And I am totally stumped tying to decide which of the four Garden Ranters I would most like as a neighbor. Can’t we all live in a very green housing development together where the weather never throws us a curve?
Nominations have to be in by April 15 to rush right now to the Mouse and Trowel site and get yours in. Colleen you are my newest inspiring blogger.
With all the snow and ice outside, the only gardening activity I can enjoy is reading garden books. A Child’s Garden: 60 ideas to make any garden come alive for children by Molly Dannenmaier.
My fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Luppinaci, read Frances Hodgsen Burnett’s The Secret Garden to us, and I don’t know if the vision of that garden has ever left me. This beautifully illustrated book has lots of ideas for garden spaces that will entrance children – and many adults.
Dannenmaier lists the essentials beginning with water. Water certainly considered essential in all our gardens these days and she shows children playing in tiny ponds, streams, pools and fountains. I think all us parents and grannies know that water will keep a child busy for hours. And then will sleep well. Actually, my technique to handling the little grandsons is to keep them cold and wet. They have a good time and I assure that they will sleep well.
The need for heights, refuges, places for movement, creatures and plants to care for, room to dig, all are playfully provided for. I love all those vine covered hiding places. The weeping mulberry reminded me of the ‘mulberry bush’ in my cousin’s yard where we hid and whispered for hours. Whether you have children or not, you’ll find charming ideas for a welcoming and imaginative garden.
After a night and day of snow and freezing rain, we had a brief respite. Then it began to snow again. Two more inches of fine cold snow. I had to leave at dawn today for a Library and Legislators breakfast and almost didn’t make it because the nighttime winds had frozen the car doors shut. Much gnashing of teeth later I got the passsenger door open, climbed over the gear shift and pretzeled myself into the car.
When I got home the winds were still blowing and the hill was covered with sastrugi, ‘snow waves’ or ‘Lillipution canyonlands’ as Stephen J. Pyne calls them in book The Ice.
The word comes from the Russian Zastrugi, and I guess the Russians would know about ridges and furrows in the snow caused by wind. I came across the word in Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape edited by Barry Lopez. I was looking for a word to stump my friend and fellow word lover, Francis, and I succeeded. I should also say, he remembered it a whole year later when it had long since blown out of my mind.
Home Ground is an engrossing illustrated dictionary (398 pages) of landscape – and seascape – terms from abutment to drumlin to mere to tombolo to zigzag rocks. You’ll have fun looking them up yourself.
We think a lot about ‘critters’ here at the End of the Road. We hear coyotes at night – and at noon when they respond to the noon whistle at the firehouse, bears, deer (grrrrrr) and fisher cats who once killed 60 month old chicks. Recently, there have been owls. Different owls watching over different houses, even an owl sitting on the recycle metal bin at the Transfer Station. Last week I woke in the night and looked out the window and saw a silent owl flying over the bright moonlit snow.
But it was different critters who visited the other night. Our neighbor’s horses broke out (having nightmares?) and wandered up our hill where they could keep an eye on specters and ghosts. Our neighbor down the hill called us and alerted us, before calling our horsey neighbor who walked them home. We were grateful they spent so much time up here; we went out with buckets and collected their manure for our compost bin. An unexpected harvest.
Some people have snowdrops. Here in Heath we have new snow on March 15. The only thing blooming is the ever faithful abutilon. See postings for January and February Bloom Days
Water, water everywhere at the New England Flower Show. There were still ponds, splashing waterfalls, jetting fountains, dripping pillars and balls. It seems we must all have water in our gardens.
Actually I remember reading Beverley Nichols over 20 years ago and he said that water was absolutely essential in any garden. I was a new gardener at the time and I couldn’t imagine how you could ever manage this and I thought it was a ridiculous requirement. No longer. I want water in my garden. This year!
About the time I am arranging for my water feature this spring, my tree peonies will be in bloom. They look a lot like these Hanakisoi.
What a preview.
Tree peonies are very hardy and bloom very early in the season. They aren’t in bloom for long, and they can be damaged by a heavy spring rain, but they are so elegant, and so glamorous that there is no regret about the short season.
I don’t have delphiniums or foxgloves, but these made me long for spring.
One of the magic tricks of flower shows is that they can get plants that require different climates to bloom together. I don’t remember whether delphiniums and foxgloves bloom in the same exact season, but I do know that foxgloves require more shade.
Delphiniums always make me think of the story my friend Elsa Bakalar tells about her husband sitting on their roof overlooking the garden. He had his rifle and laid in wait for the woodchuck that was marauding the delphiniums. The woodchuck showed up. Mike shot. The delphinium fell dead to the ground. Mike was nonplussed, but what could he say? “It was its life or mine.” Elsa, loving wife that she was, applauded his valor.
I could not leave the Flower Show without bringing home a memento. This is one of the bonsai that was on display. I bought one that is not so aged, but at $15.99 it was in my price range. If I have any trouble, Suthin Sukosolvisit of the Royal Bonsai Garden in Stoughton assured me I could call them for advice. He also invited me to visit the Japanese style garden at the nursery – several acres! I’m putting it on my trip list.
This is how things looked on the hill on Tuesday. We still had three feet of snow and everything was covered in ice. But I left and slid down the hill to Northampton.
This is what I saw at the annual Smith College Spring Bulb Show.
The sun shone through the glass house. The air was cool, but damp and fragrant. It might as well have been spring.
After spending delicious time in the two bulb show room, I wandered through the succulent house, the fern room, the camellia hallway and the steamy palm house. I finished by the plashing waterfall. A bench was considerately provided.
In addition to the wonderful Lyman Plant House which is open to the public every day of the year except Thanksgiving and Christmas, the Smith College Botanic Gardens include perennial beds, an alpine garden, systematic gardens arranged by plant family, and trees. The entire campus is an arboretum where trees are identified and labeled, easily visible, offering not only beauty and shade, but education to all the gardeners who are invited to walk here.
Eleven year old Rory came to visit last week. All the grandchildren had school vacation and we nabbed one for some fun in the snow.
However, it was so cold that we enjoyed a lot of indoor activities as well. He needed to study up on light opera in preparation for finishing his requirements to become a Boy Scout in May so we listened to The Pirates of Penzance, Gilbert and Sullivan’s tale of a slave to duty who, it turns out, was born on Leap Year Day (just like this year!) and found out he would not be free of his piratical indentures for many many more years.
He also had to help us prepare for the Heath Gourmet Club dinner on Saturday, his first time as a Guest Eater. And he ate a lot! We celebrated the Chinese New Year, and Rory was born in the Year of the Rat so this was an especially appropriate meal for him to attend. Dumplings. Beef and peppers. Stir fried vegetables. Whole steamed fish, and Ming Tsai’s East Meets West Spice Cake.
Too bad the Cub Scouts don’t give points for cooking. The boy is a natural!
Since I took this photo of Krishna, chest deep in snow, early in the week we have had more snow. More wind. And more snow. Krishna is now neck deep in the white stuff, and snow shoes are required to get out to the hen house.
However, the sun is bright. The days are a bit longer. Our bedroom is bright by 6:45 am and getting up is easier and easier. The weather man even forcasts temperatures of over 32 for the next few days. We can’t smell spring, but sugaring season is upon us. Yummmm!
Uncategorized | Pat March 28, 2008 | 
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Some people have snowdrops. Here in Heath we have new snow on March 15. The only thing blooming is the ever faithful abutilon. See postings for January and February Bloom Days
This is how things looked on the hill on Tuesday. We still had three feet of snow and everything was covered in ice. But I left and slid down the hill to Northampton.
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