Everything Changes – Even the Garden Rules

  • Post published:08/21/2015
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River Birch tree bedEverything changes. Our whole life is changing, but there are smaller changes in the world, like changes  in cultivation rules, come to all gardeners with some regularity. We have been planting trees and shrubs in Greenfield and have followed new rules, and rubbed up against others unhappily. One old practice, if not a rule, about planting trees was that you could leave on the wire cage if it came with one, and that you could…

Home Outside Plan for Pat and Henry

  • Post published:07/25/2015
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My husband Henry and I stood outside the back of our new Greenfield house. We each clutched a different custom garden design prepared for us by Home Outside  Julie Moir Messervy’s newest service to help homeowners create the garden they had always dreamed of. We looked at each other, we looked at the designs, and we looked at the blank green space that was our back yard. Both Home Outside plans used the information I had sent them. We…

Franklin Land Trust Garden Tour – June 27

  • Post published:06/20/2015
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Ruah Donnelly’s house overlooks a wooded ravine, a tapestry of shades of green and shifting light. There is not a flower in sight. Donnelly says that over her years as a gardener she has experienced a growing struggle between wanting art in the garden and wanting to conserve the landscape. While she thinks conservation is winning the battle, any visitor to this garden and landscape will see no struggle, only beauty. Donnelly’s garden is only one of the…

Forbes Library Garden Tour – June 13, 2015

  • Post published:06/12/2015
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Virginia Rechtschaffen has always loved trees. She and her husband Rob even once owned a house in Belchertown that came complete with an orchard. Lots of trees. For the past 20 years she and Rob have lived in Northampton and accomplished something I would have thought impossible. Their in-town garden is embraced by a ring of large trees with a heart of sunshine at its center. How did they do it? Virginia said when they moved into the…

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day – May 2015

  • Post published:05/15/2015
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It has been a  while since I have been able to post on Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, but May has brought many blooms to the end of the road. Old apple trees and wild cherries  are blooming in the garden , along the road and in the fields. Blooming trees are wonderful, and each blossom is a delight. The Sargent crabapple could not fit any more blossoms on itself. Didn't I tell you no more blossoms could fit…

Monks Garden at Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

  • Post published:05/12/2015
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On Mother's Day we went to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum so I could revisit the Monks Garden , newly designed by Michael VanValkenburg in 2013. I wanted to see how it was filling out, and if it really went 'crazy with hellebores" in the spring. This is where we entered on the graceful curving path. Visitors to the Museum can also enter the Monks Garden from one of the galleries. The trees are indeed filling out. Hellebores…

Considering Small Blooming Trees

  • Post published:04/12/2015
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Blooming trees are an important part of our domestic landscape, giving it substance as well as beauty. Planting a blooming tree requires more thought than planting a perennial or pots of annuals. A tree cannot be moved at will. No matter what we plant in our garden we have to consider the site, sun or shade, and we have to consider the growth rate and the ultimate size of the plant. With a tree these considerations become even…

Stone, Water, Earth and Sky – A Woodland Walk

  • Post published:12/03/2014
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The moss on the piazza in front of  the house begins to turn lush and green as we begin the walk into winter. I  went on a woodland walk  to see if I could find any more moss to photograph, but I found much more. I found moss on one side of the road and on the other, wetter, side of the road. I found moss on a rotting log, I also saw a rivulet running cheerfully through…

First Day of Fall Colors – Shades of Change

  • Post published:09/22/2014
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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…

Dioecious Plants – It Takes Two

  • Post published:07/12/2014
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Dioecious Plants: Dioecious species have the male and female reproductive structures on separate plants. The Annual Rose Viewing was a success, but it was the hardy kiwi vine on our shed that also got a lot of attention. Of course, it is the unusual green, white and pink foliage that makes the hardy kiwi so notable. I first saw this vine at the LakewoldGarden in Washington state many years ago. It was growing on a long trellis, so I…