Herbs for the Kitchen and for the Soul

  • Post published:03/28/2015
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Herbs. Some people like herb gardens because they are so practical, others like the romance of herbs. All new herb gardeners will find that they are about the easiest gardens to tend. Herbs are not fussy plants. Lisa Baker Morgan and Ann McCormick belong to the practical school. Their book Homegrown Herb Garden: A Guide to Growing and Culinary Uses (Quarry Books $24.99) gives information about growing 15 flavorful herbs, and then delicious recipes using each of the…

Water – Fountains, Pools and Ponds

  • Post published:03/25/2015
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Water is a precious resource. It is also a source of beauty in our gardens. We cannot all have water like this in our garden, but . . . we can have a circular fountain, and and we can have fountain and grotto pool in our back yard jungle, and and we can have a simple urn fountain, but we will probably never have a frogs with turtles fountain like this one in Seattle, Washington. What kind of…

Roses Without Chemicals by Peter Kukielski

  • Post published:03/20/2015
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  Peter Kukielski knows how to grow roses without chemicals and I have learned a little about disease resistant roses over the past 30 years. One thing I love about our Annual Rose Viewing is the chance to tell visitors that you do not need an arsenal of chemicals to grow healthy, beautiful roses. I did not always know this. My rose education began when we moved to Heath in 1979. In my admiration for Katherine White, wife…

Rachel’s Rose for Wordless Wednesday

  • Post published:03/18/2015
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The day has been warmer, briefly, but windy and with an icy shower. I refused to think about it. I am thinking about Roses. I am thinking about Rachel's Rose which I wrote about here.  Rachel's Rose is an old trouble-free  farmhouse rose, name forever lost, but there are now new trouble-free roses available with a long season of bloom Peter Kukielski, former curator of the NYBG Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden,  is the man to tell you about…

Master Gardener Spring Symposium March 21, 2015

  • Post published:03/13/2015
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Creating Your Own Eden is the name of this year’s fact and delight loaded Western Massachusetts Master Gardener Spring Symposium on Saturday, March 21 at Frontier Regional High School in South Deerfield. I can imagine a garden Eden where all the trees welcome insects to take a modest banquet from their leaves, where birds eat some of those insects, where weeds and flowers grow to provide food for caterpillars, some of which also get eaten, and where butterflies…

Smith College Bulb Show a la Giverny

  • Post published:03/10/2015
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The theme of  the Smith College Bulb Show is Giverny, Monet's famous French garden. Today I was satisfied to be  in the Lyman Plant House in Northampton and dream of Giverny. A better close up of Giverny colors. A different view of Room One. An overview of Room Two.  Note the water lily pillars and backdrops.  The scent of spring in every room.   The Smith College Bulb Show at Lyman Plant House will continue daily, from 10-…

Bill Benner and Butterfly Gardens

  • Post published:03/07/2015
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Bill Benner, veterinarian, birder, and butterfly gardener, is a man with many strings to his bow, but they all play tunes of the natural world and its fragility. He will be talking about the natural world, climate change and the impact it has on our own part of Massachusetts at GreenfieldCommunity College’s Senior Symposium on Tuesday, March 10 from 2-4 pm. As a young man Benner attended CornellUniversity because of their ornithology lab. “I just wanted to study…

Shades of White for Winter, Spring and Summer

  • Post published:03/04/2015
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There are many shades of white in this world. Snow white is what I have been looking at for three frigid months now, but I dream of shades of white for spring and summer. First come the snowdrops - as white as snow. A very welcome white. Rhododendrons bloom towards the end of May, but 'Boule de Neige'  (Snowball) has a memory of the white winter. Somehow this pristine white seems prettier than the snow. High summer and…

Frigid February View from the Bedroom Window

  • Post published:03/02/2015
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The view from the bedroom window by February 5 showed that another 25 inches of snow had fallen since February 1. Cold and often windy with just below zero temperatures on a few nights. Another 18 inches of snow on February 9, but sun on the 10th. Occasional snow showers over the rest of February and continuing frigid temperatures. Minus 12 on February 16 at 7 am. Often windy with wind chill advisories common.  You can see the…