Cindy MCOK, lives in Katy which is is not far from Missouri City where my daughter lives. When I told Cindy we were coming to Texas she invited us, my husband, daughter and me, to visit her garden. I thought it would be fun to feature Cindy's garden on Three for Thursday which she started. When we first made plans she said she thought the poppies would be in bloom. And they were! We were still a distance…
For more Wordless Wednesday wonders, here.click .
Our trip to Texas had many benefits. One of the first was meeting interesting people on the train ride down. Austrailian Tamma was on her first trip trip to the United States, although she has travelled to many other countries over the years. She was our across-the-hall neighbor on the train and we got to spend lots of time visiting - and sharing meals. She said she is trying to 'eat American' but that it was hard. Americans…
I got to Houston just in time for the Garden Conservancy's Open Garden Days. My daughter Kate (R), Melissa the Houston Garden Girl (center) and I set off to see many beautiful gardens surrounding beautiful houses in some of the historic neighborhoods in the city. I can't show you all 500 photos I took, but I want to give you just a taste of what we saw. More will show up over time. It is azalea season in…
“When you have such a huge list of native plants, [as we do in New England] you don’t need exotics,” Ruth Parnall said as she handed me pages of native grasses, wetland wildflowers, ornamental shrubs, vines and trees. Then she handed me a list of books that would give me even more names of natives. Her comment reminded me of the enormous traffic of our native plants to England in the 1700s. John Bartram, often considered the first…
When I began my blog, slightly more than three years ago, I had just finished reading The Uncommon Reader, a delightful short comic novel by Alan Bennett. I am a reader and understood the reference to Virginia Woolf's Common Reader essays so the phrase 'common reader' was whirling around in my brain when I thought of that most common of weeds - the dandelion. I thought the dandelion was a perfect flower to refer to me; I am…
I wish I had known about Saint Gertrude of Nivelles in Belgium (626-659) last week. It is National Women's History Month and Saint Gertrude with her cats could have shared the stage with St. Patrick and his snakes on March 17. At the age of 10 Gertrude stated she would have no other bridegroom but Christ. In 639, after her father died, her mother established a double monastery, one for men and one for women at Nivelles. She…
It is very hard to get a good photo of the chickens drinking at their new Avian Aqua Miser waterer, but the first chicken on the right had been drinking and the second chicken on the right is still taking good long sip. What you cannot see in the photo are the little 'nipples' that work on a similar principle to a hamster waterer. The 5 gallon bucket has water and the chickens poke at the nipples that release…
Sometimes a garden is more than a garden. Sometimes a garden is comfort, safety, job training, real good food for the hungry and a supportive community. Growing a Garden City by Jeremy Smith (Skyhorse Publishing $24.95) has an all inclusive subtitle - How Farmers, First Graders, Counselors, Troubled Teens, Foodies, A Homeless Shelter Chef, Single Mothers and More are Transforming Themselves and their Neighborhoods Through the Intersection of Local Agriculture and Community and How You Can, Too. Whew!…
There was a great crowd at the Master Gardener's Spring Symposium on Saturday. The arrangements were wonderful with a delicious and energizing breakfast buffet, fruit, muffins, juice, coffee and tea - all free. And later a yummy lunch and great conversation with our fellow gardeners. There were all manner of workshops from fruit tree pruning to roses! Naturally I went to hear Tracey Culver, who is a head gardener at Smith College, talk about the roses she grows…