Greenfield and Hawley Garden Tours – Saturday. June 28

  • Post published:06/27/2014
  • Post comments:3 Comments

Tomorrow, Saturday June 28 is Tour Day! Next weekend will be filled with an embarrassment of garden riches. On Saturday, June 28 the Greenfield Garden Club and the Sons and Daughters of Hawley will be hosting unique garden tours. The Greenfield Garden Club Tour includes gardens where lawns have been removed, pollinators have been welcomed, fruit trees have been planted, perennials bloom lushly, and water and sculpture create a beautiful space. There is also a special opportunity, for…

Mother Nature Whispered New Life Into Our Wisteria

  • Post published:06/25/2014
  • Post comments:5 Comments

  Mother Nature whispered new life into our wisteria. By May 21, when the wisteria should have been in bloom, I gave up and took this photo, a closeup, hoping I could see some sign of life. My conclusion? No life. I mourned the shade I had been looking forward  to. Still, I kept watering it. Wisteria is a very thirsty plant. No other incentives. In just over a month life has been restored. The piazza and the…

The Annual Rose Viewing – Sunday, June 29

  • Post published:06/22/2014
  • Post comments:5 Comments

Preparations for the Annual Rose Viewing got off to a slow start. May was so cold that the roses weren't leafing out on schedule. I knew there would be winterkill, but I couldn’t tell where it began. Then June arrived and the roses must have felt they needed to put on some speed.  Leaves, buds and even a few blossoms arrived almost at the same time. Now I am pruning out winterkill. One of the mysteries of pruning…

A Paradise Garden in Turners Falls

  • Post published:06/20/2014
  • Post comments:6 Comments

Ed McAvoy (88) and Lynn Hoffman ('nearly 90') are peeking into their paradise garden in Turners Falls. When Lynn and Ed built their little suite in the house belonging to Ed's daughter, they knew they had to have a garden. When I saw it I was reminded that the word paradise originally came from the old Persian word for a walled compound. This small walled garden shows that paradise can exist at any size. There is room for…

Water – An Essential Garden Feature

  • Post published:06/18/2014
  • Post comments:4 Comments

Water is an essential garden feature. It can be elaborate like this shady stone stream that empties into a stone pond. It can be in a Japanese plantscape with a fountain. A large pot with a circulating pump can be transformed into a shady water garden. Sometimes water can just be captured in  the concavity of a stone. Does your garden have water?  How can you create a water feature?  

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day – June 15- 2014

  • Post published:06/15/2014
  • Post comments:9 Comments

On this sunny, cool (72 degrees) but breezy, Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, bloom is beginning to arrive. These stocks are in the Herb Bed right in front of the house, where there is also an array of potted geraniums, petunias and such. They are not doing terribly well because the weather remains so cool. Calsap will stand in for all the plants in the corner that have gone by, the 2 tree peonies, as well as Boule de…

Forbes Library Garden Tour June 14 in Northampton

  • Post published:06/13/2014
  • Post comments:2 Comments

Time for the Forbes Library Garden Tour June 14 10 am - 3 pm. The time comes for many of us gardeners when we think we cannot carry on with our gardens, or houses, as they are. We are older, the children have gone, and we are not quite so energetic or willing to toil for hours in the summer sun over our weeds and slugs. The time comes to think about a smaller house and a smaller…

Cabbage, Cauliflower, Other Crucifers and Cutworms

  • Post published:06/12/2014
  • Post comments:3 Comments

Cabbage, caulifower and other crucifers seem to attract cutworms. There are thousands of varieties of cutworms that can overwinter in the garden for two years before metamorphizing into a moth. They are tiny, hard to see and often live just below the surface of the soil where they are invisible until you walk out in the morning to see that your cabbage seedlings are either wilting (because they are not yet thoroughly cut through) or lying  in a…

Dear Friend and Gardener – June 8, 2014

  • Post published:06/10/2014
  • Post comments:7 Comments

Dear Friend and Gardener - I am going to have to go back a bit  to give you  the history of the  60 x 40 fenced Potager to explain why my main crop appears to be woodchips. Originally this garden began as a 12 x 12 foot veggie garden tilled and planted before I had my hip operation in 2003 and had to limit (try to limit) my garden activities. After my successful hip replacement I added a…

View from the Bedroom Window – May 2014

  • Post published:06/09/2014
  • Post comments:0 Comments

The view from the bedroom window on May 5 shows that the grass is greening up, but it is cold, 46 degrees, cloudy and windy. I dug up plants for the Bridge of Flowers plant sale, but then went back in the house to work in front of the woodstove. Now it is hot! 80 degrees. What a difference a week makes. We had a little rain and warmer days - although with strong  breezes it has still felt…