A Flower Hill Farm Idyll

I drove over hill and over dale until I found the white house with the green roof – and a welcoming table in the garden. Prettier than the table, and with a smile that said more about welcome than a pretty table, Carol greeted me under centuries old maples and led me into the garden.

Those who are familiar with the Flower Hill Farm landscape through Carol’s gorgeous photographs, can imagine the gardens that meander downhill, and the hill rising in the distance, just now turning into a tapestry of autumn color. And yet to be there under Carol’s sky, and watch the monarchs flitting and resting in her field made for a truly magical afternoon.

When I arrived it was time for my midafternoon snack and Carol had anticipated my need with beautiful little sandwiches and apples from her tree. She made tea and I uncovered the cake I brought while we chattered and compared notes about our life here in the  country.  Sometimes people who read our ‘country’ blogs may think our life is one long idyll, but we are busy in and out of our gardens and we had a lot to say to each other.

Carol is an artist. I got to see some of her beautiful paintings, as well as more more of her stunning photographic prints. But as  we began our walk through the garden it was clear her artistry takes another form in the garden in a way I will never emulate. She prunes! Her trees and shrubs are graceful sculptures, and yet totally natural and seemingly artless.

My photographs will not do justice to her expertise, but I was amazed at how she has trained this hydrangea. I have never thought about pruning my hydrangea for any purpose except keeping it in bloom.

I loved the Three Graces. Carol has placed and pruned these crabapples to make a fruitful sisterhood providing food and shelter for the birds.

As we walked  I couldn’t help but think of the lines in the Christina Rosetti poem, “My heart is like an apple tree/ Whose boughs are bent with thick set fruit.”  These laden boughs were for the birds, but there were many other fruitful trees, an echo of the  fruitful life Carol has made for herself here.

She led me towards a gateway formed by two trees to a curving path that led to who knew what beauty. From a slightly different perspective the trees framed the stark white birches. Light and shadow. Every artist’s friend.

There were so many interesting and beautiful plants to admire as we strolled. After a while I had to hold myself in check because I had barely to express my pleasure at an unusual  plant like this pale sedum when Carol would have offered to dig up a root – or to promise one in the spring. This fall is really too dry for transplanting now.

The autumn afternoon was drawing to a close and we had to say – not goodbye – but a bientot. Til soon.  Now that I know the road, and know that Carol’s friendship is waiting at the end, the road will be short.

The road to pleasure is also short for those who take advantage of all that Flower Hill has to offer, a B&B retreat, and stunning flower arrangements for every occasion.

There Be Giants

Did you know that growing and exhibiting giant vegetables is a popular competitive sport?  I don’t have photos of Art Kaczenski’s 2010 Second Place Winner at the Big E’s Giant Pumpkin competition, but once again he took second place with a giant pumpkin weighing 993 pounds. His wife Amanda Kaczenski took third place this year with a giant pumpkin weighing 927 pounds.  The First Prize winner was Daniel Boyce of Vermont with a giant pumpkin weighing 1,254 pounds, a new record.

The Giant Pumpkin Club of Franklin County was well represented at the Big E. Lou Chadwick’s giant pumpkin weighed 793 pounds, 100 pounds more than they estimated.  Larry French of Phillipston had a pumpkin weighing 731 pounds, and Tom Brouillet ‘s pumpkin weighed 549 pounds.

Giant Pumpkin growers are really interested in other giant vegetables and the Big E is the place to show off. The Franklin County Club took First, Second and Third prizes in the Giant Squash competition. Sue Chadwick’s giant squash weighed 445 pounds, Denis Brennan’s weighed 298 pounds and Ken Magdycz’s weighed 221 pounds. Congratulations to them all.

Their prize winning prowess would not have been a surprise to those who attended the Franklin County Fair because they took First, Second and Third prizes for giant pumpkins there. Art had the biggest giant pumpkin at 781 pounds, Larry French’s pumpkin weighed 744 pounds and Ken Magdycz’s pumpkin weighed  649 pounds. Lu and Sue Chadwick’s pumpkins weighed  645 and 587 respectively.

Now it’s on to Topsfield where the biggies (pun intended) compete. Stay tuned.

Click here to read about the time I attended a Club meeting and got some good tips about growing giant vegetables. If you are interested in joining the club give Lu and Sue Chadwick a call, 413-773-3283. They’ll keep you apprised of giant pumpkin regattas and how to prepare your pumpkin for the race – and all the other kinds of fun you can have with vegetables.

Where Am I?

Last week I spent the most delightful, and inspirational, afternoon in a sister blogger’s garden. Can you tell where I am?

I know many of you are familiar with this talented woman with a quick camera finger, and her varied gardens through her popular blog. I will only say this for now. We were both surprised to find how close we live to each other.  We will reveal all on Thursday.

Flower Children Led the Way

Thinking there might be a Flower Boy or two, the bride’s attendants were billed as Flower Children, but the boys did not appear, or at least not in the procession. I didn’t get a photo until they were sitting at the bride and groom’s feet as they listened to tales of Amperands, jars of blueberries, roots and fruitfulness, and other things that made the 10 year old boys among the attendees squirm.

But to take a step back. When we arrived at Greg and Rebecca’s house, final preparations were still underway. Gardens had been raided for the bridal decorations and friends were still arranging table bouquets.

There were flowers on the table.

The wedding bouquet included flowers of every season.

Friends made an array of wedding cakes. The ‘official’ wedding cake was heavy laden with garden blooms. My cake was more modestly bedecked with pink grootendorst rugosa blossoms. My friend Ida, a knowledgeable horticulturist, said no one would recognize them as roses; they look too much like mini-carnations. Oh well.

During the ceremony my husband talked about ampersands, and the fact that many people know us jointly as patandhenry, to such a degree that sometimes we are not recognized as Pat or Henry –  that we have to say, “You know, patandhenry.” Oh, yes. then all is clear.  He brought a framed ampersand with him as a visual aid. After the ceremony, the ampersand made the rounds of all the family and friends gathered to celebrate Greg and Rebecca’s new joint identity.

The groom’s father Alan and his wife Betty took their turn with the ampersand.

So did John, the groom’s stepfather with his wife Bernadette.

Elaine and Carlos are the bride’s mother and stepfather. Carlos read a Pablo Neruda poem during the ceremony. He decried the advice so frequently and consistently given to children, to work hard, to be serious, and again to work hard. If they took that advice he wondered what they would be left with as their days dwindled down. He thought the 20 year old Neruda was amazingly wise when he wrote Every Day You Play which concludes with these words:

“My words rained over you, stroking you.
A long time I have loved the sunned mother-of-pearl of your body.
I go so far as to think that you own the universe.
I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains, bluebells,
dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses.
I want
to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.”

A perfect thought for all the couples who posed with  their ampersand.

We Celebrated!

More about this beautiful celebration tomorrow, once we have regained our romantic senses.

Drought resistant Plants

According to my records we had 4 inches of rain in August, more than half of that on August 22 and 23. No rain so far in September, at least not here in Heath.

The result is incredibly dry soil, and a hose that ran dry last week while I was filling the chicken waterers. Granted, I had watered the vegetable garden with a sprinkler for 45 minutes before that, but this has never happened in the 30 years we have lived here at the End of the Road.

It was not long after we were rejoicing that this summer was not cold and wet like it was last year, that we began complaining about the heat and lack of rain. We gardeners are never satisfied.  Yet the weather has been such, that for the first time I began thinking that planting a few drought tolerant plants in the borders might be a really good idea. It gives me no pleasure to see the peonies browning so early, or parts of  rose bushes dying off.

I began by looking through Plants and Landscapes for Summer Dry Climates published by the East Bay Municipal Utility District.  I am fascinated by the idea that a municipality is encouraging gardeners to save water and giving them good advice about plants to use. We are not San Francisco, but some of the information is useful even here.

First, I want to say that I have never watered a lawn in my adult life, even when I had town water.  Now that I depend on a well, I try to water only the vegetable garden, although we have been timid about that as weeks have gone by with only a shower or two.

Recently I walked around my Lawn Beds to see which plants have been fairly happy, without rain and without watering. I am not surprised that the echinacea (purple coneflower), dianthus, artemesia,  agastache (hyssop) and the bee balm are thriving, because these flowers are known for liking well drained soil and being tolerant of dry spells.

I am surprised that the summer blooming phlox still look pretty good, as does the crocosmia, both of which are supposed to like dependable moisture. I can’t even credit good mulching for their appearance.  Which goes to show that there are always mysteries in the garden.

Still, I’d like to suggest a handful of perennials that are known to be drought tolerant.

This summer I visited Elsa Bakalar’s garden, now owned by Scott Prior. One of the beauties of that garden is the lavender hedge.  I confess I never had much luck with lavender myself, but I am thinking about trying again. Lavender can handle dry summers. After all, think of  Provence and the south of France where acres of lavender grow to satisfy the fragrance industry.

I planted perovskia, or Russian sage this spring and it is doing well. When I drive through Charlemont I always admire a double border of this airy plant with its lavender flowers along the walk of one of the roadside houses.

I have several achilleas in my garden, and it seems more varieties are on offer every year. Achillea is the proper name for yarrow. A white wild variety grows on the roadside, but ‘Coronation Gold, and ‘Moonshine’ have been staples for years. I have pink, and plummy red varieties, as well as the newer ‘Terra Cotta’ which is yellow gold with a little orange. I am trying to find a really orange variety.

Salvias are also tolerant of dry seasons. I have an unnamed variety that I have grown for years, as well as a new ‘May Night’ in the perennial garden and an annual purple blue salvia. Of course, I also have culinary sage, and a variegated sage. All happy to be hot and dry.

Echinops or globe thistle with its spiky flowers even dries well and can be used in dried arrangements.

Coneflowers, echinacea, used to be pink or white, but now there are wilder colors like the raggedy orange ‘Papaya’ I saw in some gardens this summer.

Familiar annuals like cosmos, marigolds, zinnias and dusty miller are also drought resistant. I have been especially happy to have cosmos and zinnias in the garden this year.

Just remember, the quality of your soil will make a difference even in a drought year. If they are well nourished plants can better withstand other stresses.

Usually there is sufficient rain in the early spring so plants do not begin to feel a drought until late spring and early summer.  It is always important to water new shrubs and trees throughout their whole first growing season, even if the weather is very dry. Once they are  well settled in, it will not be urgent to keep them watered.

No matter what kind of plants you put in containers, it is important to water them daily, and fertilize them every week or two.  Plastic or resin containers will hold moisture for a slightly longer time than clay pots, but even so, daily watering has to be the rule.

Also, if a vegetable garden is going to be productive it will need regular watering throughout the summer or all your investment in seeds, plants, labor, and hopes for putting food by will be wasted.

Too wet or too dry. We gardeners can always complain, but we also can stop to enjoy our successes.

Between the Rows   September 18, 2010

Dahlia Season on the Bridge of Flowers

When photographers ask me the best season for visiting the Bridge of Flowers in Shelburne Falls, I say there is no Best Season. The joy of the Bridge is the ever changing and ever beautiful array of flowers from April through October. Right now, if you enter the Bridge on the Shelburne side, you will not only have the variety of color and texture on the Bridge, look up and you will see the glory of the hillside beyond in shades that seem ever more rich and brilliant as you watch.

Some people think dahlias are too splashy. Not me.

I think this dahlia is simply elegant.

The plantings are arranged do that every flower looks perfect with the flowers surrounding it.  This dahlia with the end of the garden phlox is just one example.

Somebody even threw a few dahlia blossoms in the fountain.  Dahlias are beautiful everywhere!

What Do You Know About Mushrooms?

When my grandson Rory visited this summer he helped with chores, like getting woodchips for the paths in the potager. We were amazed to find something unexpected hiding in the pile.

Mushrooms!  At first we only saw the fine white roots but Rory kept digging very carefully and we came upon several groups of mushrooms. I don’t know anything about mushrooms, so I don’t know if these are edible. We didn’t test them out.

I’ve written about mushrooms before.  My neighbor Al has a mushroom nook, and some delicious winecap mushrooms growing under some shrubs in wood chips very much like these. You can read about that here. Obviously the mushrooms Rory found in the woodchip pile are not winecaps.

The fine white mushroom (fungi)  ’roots’ we saw growing in the woodchip pile are called mycelium. Fungi help with decompostion of organic compounds in the soil and it has been suggested that they can be used for bioremediation of organic polllutants like petroleum products. One of my most viewed posts has been about mycellium used as strong, non-toxic, non-flammable insulation. You can read about mycotecture  here.

Autumn Equinox, Moon Festival – Two Cultures

Today (or tonight actually, at 11:09) we in the west mark the Autumnal Equinox, when the length of night and day are exactly equal. Since it is the sun that determines the length of the day we could consider this a solar ‘festival’. The solstices and equinoxes occur at about the same day every year.

In China festivals are calculated by a lunar calendar, which means they are movable feasts, as is the Christian Easter. The most important date in the Chinese calendar is the Spring Festival or New Year celebration which usually occurs sometime between mid January and mid-February. The second most important celebration is the Moon Festival or mid-autumn festival. This year our Equinox and the Moon Festival occur on the same day.

In our modern times the equinox does not merit much of a celebration, but when we lived in China we loved all the excitement around the Moon Festival which mostly involved gazing at the moon and eating fancy, and expensive, round pastries called Moon Cakes, which were sold in fancy red and gold boxes. I have to say, I never developed a taste for Moon Cakes, but I did like the idea of them and even bought a mold for making them in a kitchen supply store on a back street in Beijing.

Unfortunately I never figured out how to use the mold which is about an inch deep, nor did I develop an Americanized version of the moon cake that might have fewer than 1000 calories and be filled with things more to my taste than egg yolks or bean or lotus paste. My husband and I often stop to admire the moon in all it’s phases, but have never held an official Moon Viewing Party.

Yesterday on Marketplace, the NPR business program, I learned from Rob Schmitz in Shanghai that there is a big black market in moon cakes, or more specifically, moon cake vouchers. Important business people and public officials could never eat all the expensive moon cakes they recieve as gifts, and this is understood, so people buy and give moon cake vouchers, which the recipients sell on the black market to get the money (bribe?) and those without influence to sell, can buy the moon cakes on the black market, for a price which will fluctuate as the season progresses. After today the vouchers are worthless.

Of course, if there is a festival, there must be a reason. As usual there are many versions of the story of Chang e, the lady in the moon, but it all begins with Hou Yi, a master archer. The Mother Sun had ten sons and when they travelled above the earth one by one, plants grew and the world was a happy place. One day the ten suns decided to go all at once and soon the earth was a parched desert and people were dying. Hou Yi shot down nine of the suns, leaving only one to provide light and warmth.

As a reward the Queen Mother of the West gave Hou Yi a pill of immortality. The single pill was to be cut in half so that he and his wife, Chang e, could both become immortal. Hou Yi kept the pill in a box, and one day he went away. While he was gone Chang e looked in the box, as she was forbidden to do, and suddenly Hou Yi walked in and she was so startled  that she accidentally swallowed the pill.

Because one pill was an overdose she began to float up into the air. Hou Yi could not shoot an arrow to catch her for fear of hurting her and so she floated right up to the moon where she lives today, all alone except for the Jade Rabbit. I’m not sure how the Jade Rabbit got to the moon. But I do know that is why when the Chinese gaze at the moon they see Chang e, not a man in the moon.  Or they might see the Jade Rabbit.

And when they celebrate the Moon Festival they gather with family and friends, and think of lonely Chang e who is forever separated from her husband and all that she loved on earth.

Leaves Turning – and My Return

All last week I watched the leaves turn, more brilliant, more gold, every day. But this Monday Record is late, not only because my husband and I returned to Vermont to the scenes of my youth, and to help my aunt and uncle celebrate his 85th birthday and their 30th wedding anniversary, but because I had to return to Bellows Falls again today.  I left my purse with my camera at Fat Franks, The Wurst Place in Bellows Falls where we had great hot dogs on the way home.

The first return was to meet up with my cousin Walt and his wife Peggy, and Cousin Dick. We had a delicious country breakfast at the Dutch Mill. I lived for a couple of years at The Farm where Walt and his siblings grew up, but Dick only got to visit in summers.

Walt and I posed in front of the building that served at our two room school house in 1948-49.  We had electricity, but no plumbing. Miss Stewart the teacher for grades 1-2-3 down stairs (grades 4-5-6 were upstairs) brought a giant crock with drinking water with her every day. The mothers took turns making soup or chili con carne and bringing it to school so we could have a hot lunch during the winter.  I think Dick was really sad he never got to go to this school. In the fall of 1949 Walt didn’t go here any more either.  A new Consolodated School opened  up. More kids. More teachers. Running water and indoor plumbing.

The Farm is right on the shore of Lake Champlain. This is the main cove where we swam, and where Walt’s family built a kind of pavilion and camp site for people to use when they visited.  Skinny dipping, family picnics and reunions.  Years and years of memories.

Along with all the ‘Remember whens’ we went to visit family gravesites – and consider our own mortality. This stone is for my parents. My father died in 1979 and my mother in 1990. I am now older than either of them was when they died.

But the main reason for this visit to Vermont was a celebration.  My mother’s sister, Doris, had a sweetheart, Mike Claflin, when they lived in high school in Charlotte. After graduation Doris moved to New York City with her parents and later married and had two daughters, Carole and Karen. When she was widowed, Mike got in touch and the result is 30 years of very happy married life together.   There were too many cousins in attendance to get them all together at once and too much celebrating all over the place to get a group photo.

Just pretend you are on the deck looking down at the land that belonged to the Claflin Farm before a good chunk of it was sold off, with Lake Champlain in the distance.

We finally had to leave the celebration and wend our way home. I thought it would be fun to stop in Bellows Falls, where we had never been for a snack supper. We found the fabulous Fat Franks, the wurst place to eat in BF – and they have all kinds of wurst, all kinds of local mustard, great sauerkraut, the best home made hand cut local russet potatoes for French fries. Everything is just what we locavores could wish. And they were really nice to let us in because they were just about to lock the door. If you are in Bellows Falls, stop at Fat Franks.

Today I had to return to Bellows Falls and Fat Franks to retrieve my purse and camera. I took this photo of a police car in honor of Archer Mayor, author of the Joe Gunther  mysteries which I enjoy so much. Joe was stationed in Brattleboro until he became a member of the newly formed Vermont Bureau of Investigation, but he’d have to drive up to Bellows Falls every now and then.  They have a great book shop there, an Opera House and a lot of very nice people.