As a member of the Bridge of Flowers committee I am always happy when a visitor eloquently admires dahlia season on the Bridge of Flowers. Or any bloom season. Recently the Fine Gardening Magazine website featured a number of photos of the Bridge, and comments by Andy Engel of Fine Homebuilding Magazine - who finally followed the signs to the Bridge. To see his photos click here. I have taken my own photos of the Bridge this season.…
Many of us are very reluctant to put together a flower arrangement. We see photos of complicated bouquets accompanied by complicated descriptions of color and texture and know we could never aspire to making such a thing. In her book Windowsill Art: Creating one-of-a-kind natural arrangements to celebrate the seasons (St. Lynn’s Press $18.95) Nancy Ross Hugo, shows us a way to make arrangements that are beautiful in their simplicity. I am a person who is known for…
In spite of its name, Birds AND Blooms, I always thought of this magazine as concentrating on Birds. However, I've been looking at it from time to time and have come to realize that it has lots of good information for gardeners, too. In fact, as we all become more aware of the pressures on our environment, climate change, depredations of host environments for migrating birds, and a simple desire to attract those 'flowers of the air" birds…
Two parks played an important part in our life recently. Last week our granddaughter Tricia married her high school sweetheart, Brian. The ceremony was held in the beautiful and pastoral Look Park in Northampton at the Theater of Pines. It was a happy moment for all the extended family and there are lots of us on both sides. The bride and groom posed with Granny and the Major, and Aunts Kate and Betsy, her mother our daughter Diane,…
The colors of the landscape on the first day of fall are shifting. Fall colors are mutable, first draining and then gathering richness. The dawn sun on the trees across the field show the rustiness of the trees as the fresh green seeps away. As I drove around on my errands I saw the different fall colors arrive in different ways, vibrantly on the treetops. The low branches of the beeches are turning gold and if I look…
These chilly days and cool nights have got me thinking about spring. Or more specifically the need to plant spring blooming bulbs this fall. There is something about gardening that makes us gardeners keep one eye a season or two ahead, even as we work with the challenges and pleasures of the present. Catalogs for spring bloomers have already arrived. The Old House Gardens catalog is a favorite because I love thinking of the long history of…
Encino lettuce is a tender green oakleaf. I always pay attention when a vendor like Rich Pascale of Shoestring Farm urges me to try something. I am really glad I took home a huge head of Encino. The end of August is getting to be the end of the season for Encino, but now only the beginning of my desire to grow it, or at least eat it. I found seed at Seedway and as far as I can…
Harvest season is upon us. This is the reward of summer-long labors. I’ve been talking to neighbors who are canning dilly beans and corn, making peach jam and drying herbs. One neighbor is seeing what she can rescue from the late blight that is hitting many tomato patches in the area. Harvest time can be hectic when so much produce is coming in at the same time. I don’t do much canning any more. I depend more…
A bouquet of roadside weeds. My roadside. Quite lovely, don't you think. Two kinds of aster, blackeyed susans, lots of goldenrod, tansy and a bit of a cheat - red highbush cranberry (Viburnam) berries and some rugosa rose hips. Mother Nature must love us a lot to give us these beauties in such abundance.
A cool cool August. That means the grass grows really fast, even though there hasn't been any rain to speak of. This has got to be one of the coolest Augusts ever. Nighttime temperatures in the 50s - and often taking a long while to warm up. The one rainfall came all at once. Torrents amounting to 2-1/2 inches on August 13. The Lawn Beds don't change very much, at least from this angle, but the field beyond…