photo courtesy of UMass

I have to say how happy I am that my alma mater, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst has just installed its first Rain Garden. It is 150 feet long, 20 feet wide and 18 inches deep.  It is near the new (and very green) Studio Arts Building, below North Pleasant Street. The rain garden will collect run off from the street,  protecting the wetlands and Mill River on the west side of the campus from pollution and sediment.  Rain water is not clean after it has run off roads, lawns with animal feces and other trash. This dirty water can harm sensitive wetlands, and the sediment the run off carries will shorten the life of wetlands.

Students in Michael Davidsohn’s landscaping construction materials class, along with 2010 landscape architecture graduate Maxwell Cohen, worked on the project during the spring semester, using many recycled materials to keep the cost down.  Staff from Building and Grounds and the Physical Plant assisted with excavating, which shows the university’s support of this environmental endeavor. Davidsohn estimates that  the rain garden, planted with rushes, sedges and other water loving plants, can accept 3000 to 4000 gallons of water at a time.

Two other rain gardens are being planned for the Amherst campus.  Even when rain gardens are not protecting delicate wetlands, they do protect our storm sewer systems and the waterways that feed our rivers. They also keep the rainwater on site – recharging the local aquifer.

Hooray UMass!

Rosa setigera

Rosa setigera, otherwise known as the Cherokee rose or Prairie rose is the only climbing rose native to North America.  Its range is from Canada to Texas, as far west as Nebraska and Kansas.  I bought my plant at Nasami Farm in Whately last year. My rose collection was calling out for a native American rose.  I was told that although this is listed as a climber most people let it just grow into a mounded tangle.

R. setigera foliage

I didn’t really know what this rose would look like, but the foliage was quite different from the usual rose foliage.

R. setigera

This spring the rugosas started blooming in early June and the other varieties followed. We had a good show  for the Annual Rose Viewing the last Sunday in June. But no Cherokee rose.  I wondered if I had watered it enough; it is in quite a dry spot.  Then when I finally got my feet under me after my return from Buffalo, there it was, in full graceful bloom. The single blossoms in shades of pink are about two inches across on arching branches.  I don’t know if this late bloom date is typical, or another manifestation of all the odd weather this year.

Blueberries on the bush

Netting the blueberries was the big garden task of the weekend.  Between the heat, the thunderstorms, adventures with visiting grandson Tynan, picking raspberries and preparing to host the  Heath Gourmet Club on Saturday night, this job kept getting postponed. Finally, on Sunday, with the sun shining and a deliciously cool breeze blowing, we set to. The berries are just starting to  ripen here at the End of the Road, but the birds are starting to circle.

We planted our blueberry bushes at least 27 years ago. For many years we just threw nets over them to keep the birds away, but we finally got smart and built a PVC pipe cage. The cage covers the five bushes that are planted in a straight line. If we had thought of the necessity and practicality of a netted cage we would have planted the bushes in a block.

Black plastic netting goes over the pipe supports and is tied in place with twistees.  In the photo above you can see that two large bushes live outside the cage, providing a few early berries for us, and many berries for the birds. I may not supply the birds with sunflower and thistle seeds, but I do provide a good supply of blueberries.

The netted berries supply us with a long season of freshly picked berries that do not have to be picked daily the way raspberries do. They are the most considerate of berries, hanging on the bush for days without rotting or spoiling. In fact they are considerate of the gardener’s labor as well.  Once these bushes were planted in our naturally acid soil, they have not needed any other care.  I occasionally cut out small dead branches; that is the only pruning required.

I pick my blueberries at my leisure and enjoy the these healthiest of fruits in the summer, and through the winter, pulling bags of them out of the freezer. At my leisure.

Siloam Double Classic

Daylily season is upon us.  Even those who can’t name many flowers recognize dayliles, those growing in glorious organce by the road side, and those in shades of cream and pink, coral, gold and deep reds and burgundies in cultivated gardens. Some daylilies have the classic simple trumpet shape and some are ruffled.  Because daylilies are so hardy as well and beautiful in their variety, many small growers sell them in full bloom, dug out of the garden right before your eyes.

Richard Willard at Silver Daylily Gardens

I bought some dayliles from Richard Willard at Silver Garden Daylilies earlier this spring. He is having another digging day on Saturday, July 10 from 9 am to 4 pm. The daylily farm is on Glenbrook Road out towards the Greenfield Pumping Station. On July 17 Richard is holding his annual Daylily Festival which will include edible daylily treats dished up by Mary Ellen and Denise of Stockbridge Herb Farm.  Pre-registration for the daylily meal ($18) is required.

Lorraine Brennan's Daylilies

Last summer daughter Kate and I visited Lorraine Brennan on Rt 10 in Northfield and bought a carload of daylilies. She is selling daylilies on July 10 and 11 from 9 to 1 pm, and again the following weekend, July 17 and 18 from 9-1 pm. Lorraine will have a sign out on the road. Don’t drive too fast.

Last year I also bought a small yellow daylily at Shelburne Farm and Garden. It is named Happy Returns. One of my Buckland library patrons gave this daylily to the library. We thought the name was just perfect for a library.

Hyperion daylily

My tall clear yellow daylily is the classic Hyperion. It was given to me by Elsa Bakalar many years ago. We are deconstructing a daylily bed and moving my favorite daylilies to the new Daylily Bank. My husband will no longer have to mow that difficult area.

The beauty of daylilies lies not only in their color and form, but in their hardiness. They are not bothered by extremes in weather. They need only ordinary soil. They are not bothered by disease or bugs. Hybridizers are coming up with varieties that bloom early and late so you can have daylilies blossoms  all summer long.

Field of greens at Pen and Plow Farm

Who would not like to live on Pudding Hollow Road? It is clearly a road steeped in the history of Hawley, a town settled in 1760, and a unique pudding contest which took place in the late 1770s.  Farms and food have always been important parts of Hawley’s history and culture so I could not resist the opportunity to visit the newest farm and an old established garden, both on Pudding Hollow Road, and both a part of Hawley’s annual Artisan’s and Garden Tour which will be held on Saturday, July 10 from 10 am until 4 pm.

When you turn off Route 8A and cross over the new bridge you are on Pudding Hollow Road, Right across from the tiny town hall is the two year old Pen and Plow Farm, so called because the Velazquez family, Sheila, her son Jason and his wife have all been in the publishing/editorial business , but since early last spring have been turning their creative energies to sustainable farming.

Merlot lettuce at Pen and Plow farm

Sheila, who said she had farmed many years ago and has had varied careers since then, was delighted that her son gave her the nudge (push?) to go back into farming. The family found 21 acres, wooded and clear, with a year round stream. They have planted a large market garden, currently boasting ‘greens’ including reds like Merlot, Red Fire and Red Sails lettuces. These can be purchased among other places, at the new Charlemont Farmer’s Market held on Saturdays at the Hawlemont School.

In addition to the mangelwurzel (for animal feed) corn, squash, and other vegetable fields, they have two Scottish Highland Cows. “They are a good breed for the country,” Sheila said. “ They are hardy and eat brush, poison ivy and wild raspberries.”  I can see that would save on feed bills. They also have chickens and recently added a Jersey milk cow to their holdings.

Jason Velazquez

Jason took time out from his chores to show me how to sharpen and use a scythe, and to talk about his pleasure in being able to return to farming. “Values you learn in a rural childhood are applicable to many walks of life,” and this is one of the reasons he wanted to leave Boston and bring his wife and children to Hawley and to make a farm.

As he showed me all the projects, he explained that they want to learn to do more with less. “Everything we do is rooted in sustainability – what the land can sustain, and the amount of labor we can sustain as a family. We wan to provide our own food, but we plan to farm to a living. We have a commitment to being part of a community that sustains itself.”

As they move towards making a living on the farm they are paying attention to the vegetables that customers prefer. They also sell fresh eggs that have the brilliant yellow yolks that are typical of free range chickens.

Paul Cooper

Paul Cooper, retired neurosurgeon and serious cook, and his wife Leslie have been summering in Hawley since 1981, enjoying the magnificent views of the hills, and tending their gardens.

Cooper toured me around his hillside, showing me new fruit trees, apples, pears, a greengage plum, peaches, and quince. Several years ago they planted two copper beech trees which are still young, but already show signs that they will grow into majestic old trees. There is a special thanks due to people like the Coopers who plant trees that will not come into their noble maturity until they themselves are no longer walking the earth.

There are colorful flower gardens that Leslie tends, daylily borders, and pink honeysuckle vines, not an invasive variety. But Cooper’s favorite garden is the fenced vegetable garden which hints at his passion for cooking.  He grows several kinds of tomatoes, Big Boy, Sun Gold, Early Girl, Celebrity and Donna. Yukon Gold, Corolla and Kennebec potatoes, Fava beans, shallots, leeks, garlic, asparagus and eggplant, “but no peppers, because I hate them,” he said.

Mint is grown in its own circular garden where the lawn mower can keep it under control.  A small herb garden supplies much of the common herbs Cooper needs.

The lettuce was lush and Cooper sighed when he said, “It’s been a lettuce summer,” which is to say cool and damp.

Paul Cooper's lambs

Cooper hasn’t forgotten the main course, He also raises lambs – and he has a large collection of lamb recipes.

The blueberry, raspberry and red currant patches suggest that diners at his table do not leave until there has been a luscious dessert.  Maybe he will find one in The Pudding Hollow Cookbook, written by Tinky Weisblat, another Hawley resident.

Akebia covered pergola at the Cooper's

The Hawley tour includes visits to other farms, gardens and a lunch at one of Hawley’s Great Houses, also on Pudding Hollow Road.

This tour, A Collage of Arts and Gardens Throughout the Town of Hawley is sponsored by the Sons and Daughters of Hawley. Proceeds will help fund restoration of East Hawley Meeting House and the Grove Building. It is hoped that the new bathrooms in the Grove Building will be completed by tour day. For more information about tickets for the  tour call Cyndie Stetson 413- 339-4231.

Betweenthe Rows  June 26, 2010

Month old chicks

Today the chicks are one month old!  We celebrated by moving  half of them down to their new home in The Dell with Sheila. She rebuilt their chicken house to make it snug and safe.  Three strong women, Sheila, her daughter Katelynn, and I squeezed into our henhouse to separate out the Buff Orpingtons, New Hampshire Reds, Silver Laced Wyandottes and Black Stars from the Barred Rocks, Dominiques and Araucanas.  Sheila lost count as Katelynn handed them off to be popped into a big cardboard box, but when they were counted out into their new space all 24 were accounted for.

Our chicks at one month

We are left with 18 chicks, but more will move out. BJ is getting six and Kate is getting four. The rest will refresh my flock of layers.  I have a good setup for brooding chicks, so I was glad to do it for the whole delivery.  I think the chicks feel more secure being part of a good sized flock.     Right now they are all happy with their new space. The brooding box has been upended and the chicks have more room to spread their wings. These are the flightiest chicks I have ever had. They are all layers, but will not be producing eggs until right about Christmastime.  A nice present for us.

Hydrangea 'Mothlight'

Yesterday the Toronto gardeners and sisters Helen and Sarah Battersby, reminded me that hydrangeas like a lot of water.  ”Hydra” is right there in its name so it shouldn’t be too hard to remember.  Fortunately, my ‘Mothlight’ hydrangea purchased a number of years ago from Nasami Farm (before it belonged to the New England Wildflower Society )  was planted where I do some watering. The bush itself got much bigger than I expected!

'Mothlight' blossom

I bought ‘Mothlight’ because I like the airiness of the blossom. I am not sure that it qualifies as as a lacecap, but the flower does not have the density of the mopheads.

Oakleaf hydrangea 6-30

Last summer I bought the native oakleaf hydrangea (shown above) from Nasami Farm. It is still hardly more than a foot tall, but you can see it beginning to blossom. I later bought a ‘Limelight’ hydrangea from Shelburne Farm and Garden. Their purchase, and planting behind the peonies was part of my lawn eradication project.  I expect both of these bushes to reach substantial size, not only tall, but more importantly for my purposes, they will have a wide spread.  My plan is that ultimately the hydrangeas will nearly fill the space between the peonies and the road.  Last summer was very rainy and even if I had been thinking about how thirsty hydrangeas are I wouldn’t have needed to water them.  However they are planted in a spot that drains very well and is quite dry.  This spring I added a ‘Pinky Winky’.  Water is essential for good bloom  I  will water all three well today.

Applejack at the End of the Road 6-13

Dr. Griffith Buck (1915-1991) is my hero because when he was working at the Iowa State College after the Second World War he began hybidizing roses that were hardy and disease resistant. At that time (and still today) rose gardeners knew they had to spray and coddle their roses.  Buck was a man ahead of his time; nowadays many poison sprays for roses are being banned for environmental reasons and other hybridizers are working on disease resistant rose hybridgs.

Applejack

When he began hybridizing he ran into problems and called on Wilhelm Kordes, a famous German rose hybridizer for help and was soon on his way to developing a whole family of disease resistant roses. Applejack was perhaps his  first success.  I can attest to his hardiness, vigor and health here at the End of the Road. I planted other Buck hybrids in our early days here, but I think due to poor planting on my part, they died.

Hawkeye Belle

Last year I began planting Buck hybrids again.  Carefree Beauty is not yet blooming, but Hawkeye Belle, a pale pink, planted this spring has its first bloom.  I will post more photographs of my Buck roses as they come into bloom.

The earliest blooming roses in my garden are the rugosas – and they are naturally disease resistant.

Apart

Apart is one of my favorite roses, big and fragrant. It took a real beating the winter of the ice storm and is just now recovering, but it has sent out new shoots, right in the middle of Champlain, a Canadian Explorer rose, who has always struggled. I haven’t solved that problem yet.

Belle Poitvine

Belle Poitvine is similar to Apart, so of course, I love her, too.  You can clearly see the heavy ridged foliage that is typical of rugosas.

Mount Blanc

Just so you can see that not all my roses are pink. Mount Blanc is almost as double as Apart and equally favorite.  All the roses will be ready for admiration at the Annual Rose Viewing this Sunday.

CSLD students prepare

Last week I was privileged to be invited by Paul Hellmund, Director, to the Conway School of Landscape Design for the presentations of term projects by this year’s class.  I was particularly interested in two of those projects: a feasibility study for the Davis Street School site and plans for a Botanical and Geological Garden at Greenfield Community College.

I have long been an admirer of the Conway School of Landscape Design with its emphasis on environmentally sound and sustainable principles and design, and its belief in learning by doing. This means that each semester of this ten month accredited Master’s program is devoted to a project carried out by teams of two or three.

The projects given to the students are real projects. Municipalities, non-profit organizations and homeowners can contact the school with an idea for a project, whether it is landscaping for a house or a Master Plan for a campground or street.  If chosen, those projects, residential in the fall, and municipal or organizational in the spring, are given to the students to form the vehicle for the curriculum.

Those who propose a project to the school know that they will get more than suggestions by an untested and inexperienced novice. Many of the students bring various educational, professional and life experiences with them when they begin, Then, from the start with client interviews, site visits for assessment and analysis, understanding of client goals and desired outcomes, Conway students work with skilled faculty who teach and guide, helping them find solutions to each site and design problem.

While clients may have or state a single goal, the educational process requires that each team come up with three options, based on that goal, for each site. At the end of each term the students present their projects to judges who critique the project and the presentation. Walt Cudnohufsky who founded the school in 1972 believes strongly in the necessity for students to be able to clearly articulate their plans orally, and in writing, as well through drawings.

The buzz at the school was electric when I arrived last Friday as students were putting up their drawings, and greeting guests which included clients for their projects. If I was excited to see the presentations I can only imagine how the students felt.

The range of projects was fascinating, with very different challenges. One team had to come up with a Master Plan for the Tully Lake Campground in Royalston administered by the Trustees of Reservations, and another was a Master Plan for Marble Street in West Rutland, Vermont.

I was particularly interested in the Davis Street School Administration Property Feasibility Study because that two acre site, about a five minute walk from Main Street, includes the ten year old community garden with its 36 plots – and a waiting list.

This is not the place to go through the three options that Josiah Simpson and Annie Cox presented, but from my own perspective I will say that if I were choosing I would work with the option that included retaining the community gardens, and landscaping the rest of the lot as a park. The truth is that the community, drawn by the gardens, already use the land as a park, walking dogs, and visiting.

Cox and Simpson were told that Greenfield already has sufficient housing so the old school building should not be renovated to that purpose. For myself, I think the cost of renovating that building for any use, as historic as it might be, is prohibitive. What the town does not have is a sufficiency of green space for public use.

Kate Snyder (R) and Gareth Crosby (center)

As a former member of the Greenfield Community College staff I was also very interested in the plans put forth by Gareth Crosby and Kate Snyder for a Botanical and Geological Garden behind the building.  Professor Emeritus  Richard Little has already arranged geological specimens from the Pioneer Valley in this space which include a greenhouse but the goal was to organize the space to provide adequate sun for a net-zero greenhouse, teaching space, and water/drainage management on the sloping site.

I liked all three of the options that Snyder and Crosby presented, but if I were the client I might very well want to combine elements from each. I was told this is what many clients do.  It then became clear that a presentation to a client is not the end of a project, but probably a mid-point, as the client reacts, not only approval, but with questions and concerns.

We all got to see all nine presentations, and hear the judges comments, but the clients will meet privately with their team for discussion.

The client will take possession of the project.  I know that Heath asked the Conway School for a plan for the town center including a park next to the Community Hall. I remember a large drawing hung in the Town Hall for a while, for comments.

I could not find that drawing or report, but I did track down a mention of it in the 1992 Annual Report. I will keep looking.

It’s hard to think that after so many long days, so many meetings, and so much hard work to provide multiple solutions, a project report may ultimately be lost in some dusty file and forgotten.

Maybe that’s just another lesson in reality for the students.

Conway School of Landscape Design

Our dream house in a dreamy landscape

When I first met my husband in 1971 we used to dream about our ideal home. Inspired by a Beetle Bailey comic strip, we called this mythical place Pork Corners. There was nothing porky about my house on Grinnell Street in Greenfield, but there in the tiny side yard I planted my first vegetable garden. I kissed the friend who came to dinner and brought a load of old horse manure as a thank you.  He sent a basket of apples for the children, but I really liked that manure.

Our neighbors, John and Mary Zon, raised raspberries. And taught us about raspberries.

Next we moved to North Berwick, Maine while I taught for a year. I bought a house and barn, but it was on an almost suburban street. I wasn’t sure this was Pork Corners, so we called it Ant and Bee Farm. We had ants, and bees, and chickens and pigs, and a huge garden, but it only took a year to make us decide to move to The Big Apple.

We lived in Henry’s ancestral apartment where the only animal life was five teenagers. When it was time to leave the little apartment in the big city, we thought about returning to Maine and the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners, but Heath called. End of the Road Farm currently has chickens and cats, but we have had pigs. Once they were slaughtered and butchered right in the  farmyard, while a wet snow fell. I might have been looking at a medieval scene.

We all have dreams about where and how we want to live. I grew up thinking you owned a house or rented an apartment. Nowadays there are many ways to arrange ownership of a home. Together on the Land: Options for Ecological Living in Community is a tour co-sponsored by the Cooperative Development Institute, Equity Trust, Franklin Land Trust, Mount Grace Land Conservation Trust & Valley Community Land Trust scheduled for Saturday, June 12 from 9 to 5. Do you know the difference between a coop, condo, and cohousing? .  Click here for full tour information. Maybe you will find a new way to get your dream home.

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Today, June 5 is also the first day of the new Farmer’s Market in Charlemont. It will be held at Hawlemont School from 10 to 2 pm.  Students from the school will be selling their produce, along with other vendors. If anyone knows of others interested in being vendors they should contact the manager at  jason@penandplow.net who is working at the new Pen and Plow Farm in Hawley.