Thirty years ago Diane Kurinsky and her husband Steve Gross built a house on a plot of land in Wendell that included fields and woodland. The land was a blank slate where they have managed to create a domestic landscape that welcomes and invites the visitor, luring her on to one delight after another. When I drove up I parked my car in the circular drive that curves around a large ‘bed’ that Kurinsky calls the heather garden.…
You may ask what this wheel suspended over a ditch has to do with plants. Well, it actually has to do with a library book about plants. I set off for the dump and the library and then realized I had my trash but not the library book Bulbs by Anna Pavord. While turning around I managed to hang the car up on a bank and my wheel was suspended which meant I couldn't go back, and I…
Even after yesterday's frost my potted datura is still blooming You can see that this plant has buds, blossoms, green seed pod, and ripe seed pod bursting. A better view of the seed pods, one still green, one already burst. For more Wordlessness this Wednesday click here.
We had our first frost last night. It was not a heavy frost, but the lawn was slightly frosted and the temperature was 37 degrees at 6:30 am. It was severe enough to kill the tomatoes and squash, but nothing else was much affected. Even the basic in front of the house, where it is protected, wasn't nipped. The sun is brilliant today although probably not as hot as the Arizona sun. The frost quickly melted. These petunias…
Yesterday I finished making a cake, to serve as ONE of the wedding cakes, for the wedding of our good friends Lyra and Ed. This is an All Occasion Downy Yellow Butter Cake with Mousseline buttercream frosting from my favorite cake cookbook, the Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum. When I bought this cookbook I was particularly taken by the love story Rose tells in her Introduction and I can never resist repeating it when I am serving a…
I think the black swallowtail butterfly caterpillar (Papilio polyxenes) is really pretty and I have never complained that it eats so much of my dill. How unlike the Giant swallowtail butterfly caterpillar I showed yesterday. However they both have the forked osmeterium that they exhibit when they are provoked and alarmed. It sends out a bad smell to discourage predators. I got to see what I thought was a forked tongue when I was trying to put my…
Some creatures will do anything to keep from getting eaten by a bird! Great camouflage Giant Swallowtail (Papilio cresphontes). For more Wordlessness on Wednesday click here.
Acidanthera, now officially named Gladiolus callianthus, was an impulse buy this spring. I have admired it on the Bridge of Flowers and when I saw a bag of ten little bulbs at Shelburne Farm and Garden I popped them in my basket. Acidanthera is a tender bulb which means it will have to be dug up in the fall - or be treated like an annual and simply left in the ground. It does not have the rigidity…
Over the weekend I spent time weeding the Lawn Beds. There were spots that had few weeds because the plants had developed into such large clumps that the weed seeds had no place to land. Some clumps were so big that it was clear it was time to do some dividing. As a general guideline perennials need to be divided every 2 -4 years. A clump will outgrow its spot and start crowding the plants around it. Sometimes…