Rose News

My own antique Ispahan

I just learned about a wonderful rose site, Roger Phillip’s Rose Reference, which has photos of thousands of roses and information about where you can get them, as well as lots of general rose information.

I am also excited to learn from them about a rose nursery in California, AND it is having a sale!  Today, the 31st is the last day for a super sale. I am going right back to the Vintage Gardens Antique Roses site.

Bee Balm – ABC Wednesday

B is for Bee Balm, otherwise known as Bergamot and Oswego Tea is more properly known as Mondarda didyma. It has been used  as a tea for centuries and is still found in herbal tea blends, and other flowery tea blends such as Earl Grey.

The Shakers grew bee balm commercially because of its many uses as a tea and culinary herb. It also was used medicinally for colds and sore throats. It is the leaves that are used. A good pruning after bloom will usually generate a second autumnal bloom.

The leaves can be used fresh for tea, or harvested and dried for two or three days, out of the sun, and then stored.

Early in my friendship with Elsa Bakalar who lived and gardened in Heath, we collaborated on an article for Horticulture Magazine about color in the garden.  Shades of color are always difficult todescribe and define. Elsa expressed her frustration with catalog descriptions and complained that using the word red was not useful. “I need to know what kind of red a flower will be if I am going to make a useful garden plan. To me, scarlet is the color of a gurardsman’s tunic and crimson is the color of Victorian draperies. Bee balm gives a perfect example.

Crimson bee balm

This is my crimson bee balm, a rich royal red with a touch of blue.

Scarlet bee balm

I cannot say that my other bee balm is ‘Cambridge Scarlet’ or ‘Colrain Red’ but it is a light bright red. “Just think of the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, tall dashing men in their brilliant tunics.”

Elsa is no longer gardening, although she is still willing to give some pretty sharp opinions. My bee balm continutes to remind me of beautiful days in the garden with Elsa and being inspired to grow flowers for the first time.

Logon for more Bs in this the 5th round of ABC Wednesday.  Thank you Mrs. Nesbitt.

Berries Jubilee

Summer blues are nothing to weep about.  The low bush blueberries are ripening on Burnt Hill. Anthony, Drew and I went picking over at the Benson Place. You can see forever on that hill, even the spires of the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.

We picked and picked. For about 15 minutes.  That’s as long as it takes two energetic boys with the efficiently designed blueberry rake to pick about 20 pounds of berries, along with a few sticks, leaves and weeds.

I confess!  We did not pick all these blues ourselves. It is inevitable that you will make a friend in the blueberry field. We shared the cart with two women who had been picking for nearly 2 hours! Hot work. Don’t you wish you had a friend who would pick blueberries for you?

At the barn we did our own sorting on  the converyor belt but my photo didn’t turn out. A farm worker put the berries SSS-LOOOOW-LLY in the hopper. Green berries and sticks and leaves fell through a kind of grate and then we pulled out green or squished berries that escaped the grate. We ended up with nearly 19 pounds of blueberries.

Tonight we are going to have blueberry crisp for dessert. Blueberry muffins, blueberry pancakes, blueberry pie and blueberries on cereal are all in our  future. And to think that blueberries are a Super Food.  All those anti-oxidents. Delicious and super healthy.

More Family and Flowers

Happy eleventh!

It began with a birthday celebration (slightly belated) and a game of Settlers of Catan (excellent), but as we often say here at the End of the Road ‘We are having fun, but we are on a tight schedule.”

And yet there are chores, or chores that are so unheard of in a Houston suburb, that they become entertainment.

Anthony and Drew got to  watching the goat milking, and then reward the goat with a stimulating brush off. They fed the goats and brought home some of Sheila’s goat cheese, too.

Other animals needed to be fed, too. Chickens and worms get hungry.

Does picking raspberries count as a chore – or entertainment.  Eating Raspberry-peach crisp is deliciously entertaining. To protect our blueberries the boys had to find a good support stick for the blueberry cage and the net is now in place. The blueberries will be ready to pick in another couple of weeks.

On Saturday the Major took the boys off for a day of touring and getting their Massachusetts State Park Passports stamped, first at the Mohawk Trail Park, near this section of the Deerfield River, then at The Discovery Center, and Mt. Sugarloaf.

Before coming home they stopped at the Tibetan stupa built on Rt. 5 and 10. They admired the lotus pond and the singing bowls in the shop selling Tibetan goods.  They didn’t buy a singing bowl (this time) but they did get prayer flags. We all need as many prayers as the wind can send.

While the boys were off touring, daughter Kate and I went off to Lorraine Brennan’s daylily sale and Kate bought me a whole bouquet of daylilies!  Then it was off to the Farmer’s Market for wonderful bread and vegetables for a local dinner with friends.

Before we left town we stopped at The Textile Company and after much discussion chose this botanical print for new curtains.  Upon reflections I have botanical or floral prints all over the house on sheets, curtains, tablecloths, sofa cushions, not to mentiona a dress or two.  How many do you have at your house?

In between rain showers and games of Settlers of Catan we had a few more chores. Anthony got to use the riding mower for the first time, Kate dug a slope for the bouquet of daylilies and Drew and I went to get more woodships.

And some time every day is spent in the majango tree. (That’s apple tree to the rest of us.)

Did I mention that we are all reading every day  too?  A perfect balance of activities.

Jane Markoski’s Garden

“I guess you can see I like water,” Jane Markoski said as she gave me a tour through her gardens. There was a birdbath in the shady entry garden, a trickling fountain as you turned the corner of the house, a bubbling faux millstone fountain at the corner of the barn, a lotus tub in the middle of a mixed shrub and perennial border, a small fish pond with a waterfall, and a larger fish pond with a little waterfall.

The piece de resistance, however, is the 40 by 18 foot lotus pond where dozens of lotuses were about to start blooming.

The lotus pond was the attraction for me as it will be for many of those who attend the Greenfield Garden Club Tour today, July 11. Tickets ($12) will be on sale at the Garden Club’s Trap Plain garden at the corner of Federal and Silver Streets between 9 am and 1 pm. The tour will end at 4 pm.

Two years ago I first heard about Markoski’s lotus pond. I couldn’t believe that they would survive in our climate, but they continue to thrive and multiply right there in Greenfield.

We first saw lotus growing during our years in Beijing. Unlike waterlilies lotus plants send their huge leaves high above the water on strong stems. In Asia the lotus is an iconic plant, symbolizing the purity that can come from the mud. We enjoyed seeing lotuses blooming in many of the parks and museum gardens. Even when not in bloom the enormous leaves are a stunning sight, held so sturdily above the water as they are.

Markoski grew her first lotuses in large tubs that were about 44 inches across. She had such success and enjoyed them so much that she felt confident enough to try a large pond. They excavated to a depth of about two feet and lined the pond. Then they refilled that space with 18 inches of soil and good compost. The pond water is only about six inches deep. “It really is more of a bog,” Markoski said.

Most of the lotus plants we saw in China were pink, but there are several varieties, available at Chapley’s in Deerfield where Markoski gets hers. Pekinese Rubra is red, Angel Wings is smaller and white. Mrs. Perry D. Slocum is a double lotus with petals that are a different color over the three days of bloom, first pink, then peach, then yellow. Each flower lasts about three days, closing in the afternoon the first two days and then remaining open and finally falling apart.

Markoski said that it is vital not to damage the growing tip from the roots. It is that tip that will produce new plants. That is why a fairly large tub is required if a lotus is to grow in a container.

Of course there are many other treats in the Markoski garden where there is “a little bit of this and a little bit of that. I don’t have a formal garden,” she said.

There is a bench for resting in the shade of a weeping cherry. The view from there of the daylilies, Asiatic lilies, astilbe and a dozen other perennials is breathtaking.

In shady parts of the garden Markoski has a varied collection of hostas, big ones, little ones, green and variegated ones. The effect is very cool and soothing. A lesson for all of us.

I was particularly taken with the dry rocky stream bed that even has a little arching bridge. The stream bed does handle run-off, but Markoski likes it just for the effect. So do I.

The advice she has for new gardeners is to prepare the soil. “If your soil isn’t good, you are always going to have problems. Good soil equals a good garden. Even if you put six inches of good loam on three feet of sand you’ll never be able to keep the garden watered.

She said she rarely waters her own garden, and admits she started with that good valley soil, but ads compost annually.

The Markoski garden, where refreshments will be available, is just one of 8 gardens on the self-guided tour which will run from 9 am to 4 pm. There will also be a daylily sale at the Glenbrook Gardens site. All proceeds from the tour go to fund the Greenfield Garden Club’s civic and local school projects.

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For many of us the harvest is starting to come in. I’ve gone through one whole bed of lettuce, now replanted which some new basil seedlings I got at the Farmer’s Market. Most of my own basil died with all the cold and wet. I think I’ll be harvesting broccoli in the next few days and I’ll be donating a couple of heads to the Center for Self Reliance in Greenfield.

The Center is one of several food pantries that is participating in the Plant a Row program, accepting any extra produce that gardeners might have. We all know that sometimes the harvest comes in so thick and fast that we can’t process it all. It’s just too much all at the same time. I have been assured that no amount is too little for the pantries and food sites to accept.

If you have extra produce, or have planted a row specifically to donate, you can find a list of food pantries and their hours on the website, www.plantarowwmass.blogspot.com. This is a great opportunity to do our bit to ameliorate the effects of these difficult economic times.

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A Mysterious Fragrance

Tilia cordata

At this time of the year the walk to the hen house and back is a particular delight because of the subtle fragrance in the air. The linden trees are blooming. Lindens are also called basswood or lime trees.

We planted 6 linden trees (Tilia cordata, with cordata referring to the heart shaped leaves)  about 18 years ago.  Three were for our three daughters, and three for the three (at the time) granddaughters.  We chose them because they are known as ‘bee trees’, providing bees with an important nectar source.  We have kept bees in the past and are always doing what we can to support honey bees and other pollinators.

We also chose them because of the fragrance.  When I was a student at UMass there was one section of the campus that smelled wonderful in July.  I could never tell where this elusive fragrance came from. One day I was talking to Dick Bonney, beekeeper and UMass entomologist, and mentioned this mysterious fragrance. He took me to a map of the campus that listed all the trees and their locations.  It was the linden trees.

Later my husband and I worked at Williams College where they had a whole row of young lindens, again scenting the summer air with their subtle fragrance.

Unless the branches are low to the ground, as they are at our house, the clusters of tiny pale flowers are not notable or very noticeable; certainly not capable of surrounding one with perfume. It is easy to understand why the British are fond of planting Lime Avenues

Basswood is familiar to those who like to make wooden models or carve wood because it is light and soft.  Our trees are Tilia cordata, the variety most used for medicinal purposes.  It is not difficult to find lime flower tea in specialty stores. Every year I say I will harvest some of my lime flowers and make my own tea, but every year I miss the perfect harvesting days. As you can see from my photo the flowers are starting to go by.

Lime flowers contain flavonoids which act as antioxidents and some say the tea will protect the liver from damage. The tea is also said to help migraines, but as a sufferer myself, I cannot attest to this at all.

Unfortunately three of the 6 trees have died.  One tree  was severely damaged by the snowplow one winter, but survived and showed its propensity to coppice, or send up more shoots. We thought a fourth tree was doomed and cut down the main trunk which had been damaged by mites, but again, it coppiced and is doing fine.  Only one of the remaining trees has the classic form.  All perfume the air.

Worm Update

The worm farm is celebrating its first anniversary. A year ago the grandsons helped set up the worm bin, drilling air and drainage holes, and putting in rotting leaves, compost and a little soil.  All of that was really unnecessary; red wigglers are not the earthworms that live in our gardens. Red wigglers are happy with damp shredded newspaper.

We started with one pound or about 1000 baby worms.  The worm bin lived outside into the fall on the north side of the house. When evening temperatures started to fall in September we moved the bin into the basement. During the winter temperatures there were stable at 50 degrees, the coldest that red wigglers can tolerate. In fact, a couple of times temperatures dipped just below 50.

This spring, when I was planting the vegetable garden, I dumped out the worm bin to harvest those valuable castings and check on the worms.  I doubt that there were 1000 worms any more, but some survived and I did have good worm compost to use when planting.

I cleaned the worm bin and this time I set up the bin with damp shredded newspaper and a little bit of finished compost. I put back the worms and hoped for warm weather, but this summer nighttime temperatures have dipped into the 50s almost every night. Great for sleeping, but the worms don’t appreciate it.

Before grandson Rory left last week we checked the worm farm. We learned that we need to keep a close eye on the bedding.  Shredded newspaper can dry out. We also decided to add some new bedding. This is a very large bin.  We do still have active worms and they are eating our kitchen waste. They love bananna peels and I give them the eggshells they need to reproduce every week. More worm compost in the making, but it is a slow business.

Large and Small on the Monday Record

The weeds grow larger, but the adventures with Rory, large and small continue.

Rory and I visited Frances Avery and her model of A.L. Avery’s General Store, an essential supplier of what we need. This small model of the store includes tinier models of everything in the store, clothes, hardware, office corner, kitchen stuff, groceries and EVERYTHING!

Mrs. Avery’s brother in law and his family lived over the store for many years. It took her a long time to make the model, which includes some doll dishes from her own childhood.

Sol Lewitt exhibit

We saw large works of art at Mass MoCA.  Rory said when he grows up he would like a house filled with Sol Lewitt’s paintings.

Natural Bridge State Park

The Major told us about the Natural Bridge State Park, right near Mass MoCA and we went on a  quest to find it. As it turns out, it was easy. There are paths, and fences and steps so you can get good views of the Marble Dam and the Natural Bridge and the gorge, but you can’t  stand on the  Bridge.  I didn’t really let Rory climb dangerous rocks either, but it was a good photo op. He picked up his State Park Passport and got his first stamp.

He stamped his book, and again when the  Major took him to The Great Falls Discovery Center in Turners Falls, after they stood on a foot bridge at the beginning of the Canal.

Water in the Canal powered paper and cutlery mills.

At the top of Mt Sugarloaf you get panoramic views of the Valley and the Connecticut River. And get a stamp for your Park Passport, too.

Rory finally had to bid us adieu, so the question is what is happening in the garden besides bigger weeds.

Well, before he left Rory did help me add new bedding to the  worm bin, and feed the worms.  They are surviving, but I cannot say they are thriving.

We did plant dayliles we got at Lorraine Brennan’s daylily sale, ate sugar snap peas, wept over the squash plants that have forgotten they are supposed to  grow and rejoiced over the Pink Grootendorst rose that we planted this spring.

Tours of Delight

These tours are over, but even these brief garden descriptions may be useful to others.

When I visited Mary Manilla’s garden in Hawley this week it was a ribbon of green along the stream that borders the garden. By the time the Hawley Garden and Artisans Tour takes place on Saturday, July 11, there will be a river of color along the stream as the hundreds and hundreds of daylilies in every hue come into bloom.

It is always fascinating to me to visit other garden’s and see the challenges they have conquered, like the impossibly steep slope that Manilla has invisibly terraced and filled with irises, roses, honeysuckle and I’ve lost track of what else. She explained that she wore special boots that helped her keep her footing on the slope. There are now books about arty vertical gardens, but she was way ahead of the curve.

The slope, and other areas of the garden are edged with stone walls that Manilla built, using stones that are so abundant on her site. I should no longer be surprised at the number of women who build stone walls, especially knowing as I do that wall building demands vision, endurance, enthusiasm and skill, not only strength.

Our gardens also hold our stories, and the stories of those who directly or indirectly made our gardens what they are. Manilla showed off the huge rhododendrons that grow by her balcony deck and explained that their parents came from the famous Kyoto temple gardens.

When she and her husband Jim were just starting to garden 30 years ago they saw an ad in The New Yorker Magazine promising plants for the connoisseur. They were not really connoisseurs at that point, but they found the nursery owner had been an Army officer in Kyoto after WWII. He made friends with the monks, and they gave him plants when he returned to the U.S. Later, when the temple’s rhodendrons died of a blight he was able to return plants to them to reestablish.

Manilla said she has always been fond of the Japanese aesthetic and that is apparent, not only in the planting of rhodies on a bank, as the Japanese recommend, but in the gentle curves of the beds, and the sculptural form of some of the trees.

This extensive garden was not built all at once. Trees were taken down one by one, and burned for firewood. Now there is an expansive lawn. When Jim became ill, the garden took another turn so that he could see what was going on from the deck.

For more information and tickets to the Hawley tour which includes vegetable and perennial gardens, an orchard with wind power as well as a quilt show, photographs, paintings and sculpture, call Cyndie Stetson 339-4231 or Margaret Eggert 339-4441. Tickets are also available the day of the tour at the Stetson’s Mountainside Farm at 108 W. Hawley Road. Proceeds benefit the Sons and Daughters of Hawley.

While the Manilla country garden is expansive, Ted Watt’s garden, featured on the Greenfield Garden Club Tour, also on July 11, packs a wallop of productivity, beauty and education on a mere third of an acre.

When he moved into his house in November five years ago he brought a number of shrubs, and a plan, with him. He immediately put the dormant shrubs into the ground, in an apparently random way. His neighbors have since commented that they had no idea what he could be doing, but now that the missing elements are firmly in place they can see the beautiful design Watt was holding in his mind all along.

Watt’s house is set on a typical flat suburban lot, with a little bit of space in front, two side yards and a back yard that is almost completely filled by a large vegetable garden, berry bushes, ‘enough rhubarb to feed all of Greenfield’, two peach trees and a ‘migrating’ compost pile. “I make deposits at one end, and remove compost from the other, so it sort of moves along. His composting technique is, “throw it in a pile and wait.” A man after my own heart.

His garden is divided seasonally, an idea he took from a Gertrude Jekyll exhibit he saw years ago. Jekyll was one of England’s most famous garden designers in the early 20^th century, but many of her ideas continue to inspire.

Watt’s spring garden is in front of the house, with a summer garden to the east. He has a large collection of fragrant peonies that had gone by when I visited, but I can imagine them perfuming the whole neighborhood.

The summer garden has fascinating plants like ‘rattlesnake master’ a tall eryngium that is native to the west, and an unusual rudbekia with large roundly oval leaves. “It’s a native as well, but I don’t really specialize in natives,” he said.

He has a blue and yellow combination that run through the gardens, small delphiniums with a yellow achillea, and Nikki purple-blue phlox blooming with yellow Happy Returns daylilies in the summer garden.

Salvia azurea blooms in the fall garden with a late blooming daylily. Blue is not an easy color to come by in the fall, but he also has a late blue monkshood that blooms until frost.

There are plants not often seen, the multistem shrub Ninebark in both its burgundy and golden forms, a golden cotinus, Carolina allspice, the ornamental cherry Hally Jolivette, and a voodoo lily.

The seasonal garden idea is a way to always have things in bloom together without the level of planning that requires so much experience and expertise needed to have continuous bloom in a single bed.

The Greenfield Garden Club tour features eight gardens in town as well as a Daylily Festival at Glenbrook Gardens. For further information or tickets call Debran Brocklesby 413-648-5227.

Though these two gardens and gardeners are very different, what they have in common is the delight they take in their gardens, delight they are willing to share.

July 4, 2009

Bloom Day – Still Rosy in July

The roses were just beginning to bloom on June’s Bloom Day, mostly the rugosas, but this Fairy, one of two, had not yet begun. Unlike most of the roses in my garden The Fairy will bloom into the fall.

I fully expected the roses which had barely begun to bloom on June 15, to be done by today, but they are have a most floriferous and long season.  The Queen of Denmark is still petite, but blooming as she never has. At least the roses like all the rain.

I planted New Dawn last spring and got a couple of blooms, but this year she seems to have taken hold. I expect her to bloom for a long-ish season.

Buckland rose

This year it struck me that the nameless (in proper terms) Buckland rose which was given to me by a Buckland friend is the same rose I bought years ago and then lost the name and record of the name.

No mystery - Buckland rose?

Don’t you think this is the same rose?  The shrub habit and size is the same.  They are even out of focus to the same degree.

So many other roses are still in bloom, Celestial, Rachel, Ispahan, Dash’s Dart, Scabrosa, Mme Legras de St. Germaine, De la Grifferai, Mount Blanc, Blanc Double de Coubert, Apart, Belle Poitvine, Leda, Mary Rose, Mrs. Doreen Pike, 4 red Double Knock Outs, Ghislaine de Feligonde, Betty Prior and Mme Plantier. Oops, I just noticed the Pink Grootendorst I planted this spring also has a single blossom.

The farmgirls are more rambunctious than ever.  Does this farmgirl bear a resemblance to the Buckland rose? She is much smaller.

Even Thomas Affleck, planted this spring at the end of the herb bed is putting out blooms. This is a good rose year!  You can see almost all the roses on the Virtual Rose Walk page.

There are other plants in bloom right now.

I split this achillea plant last fall, and both are doing well.

This hydrangea and spirea are doing so well, along with a weeping birch, that I think something must be done. But what?

The bee balms are in bloom!  I didn’t dare call this Colrain Red at the Bridge of Flowers plant sale, but I think it is.

Last summer I saw great clumps of white cosmos at the Berkshire Botanical Garden. I was inspired, but this year the rains have knocked down the white cosmos, and these pink cosmos are very short.  This new bed needs some serious work. The soil is very poor and it shows in the poor growth of the new plantings.

Other plants in bloom: an undistinguished perennial salvia; an annual salvia, a veronica, a short pink astilbe and the inevitable johnny jumpups.  The pots full of annuals are doing well.  And now daylily season begins.

To see what is blooming all across the nation, check out what’s going on May Dreams Gardens with Carol, who is the gracious hostess of Garden Bloggers Bloom Day.  Thank you, Carol!