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 Asters in the mist On this Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day I went out into the garden in the mist to take my photos. These asters just started blooming on the ‘hellstrip.’ A few other plants are blooming like the coneflower and a pink phlox.
 Hydrangea plus The Firelight hydrangea (one of three hydrangeas) is getting pinker every day. Blooming flowers around her include a helenium, Grandpa Ott’s morning glory, a delphinium and a pink honeysuckle. A lot is still going on in the garden.
 Anemone ‘Robustissima’ I love Robustissima, even when she is knocked down by last night’s rain.
 Sedum Name lost. Maybe ‘Neon’? She doesn’t seem very Neon-ish.
 Zinnias, cosmos and marigolds These annuals are growing on a bed where all the perennials drowned last year. I love looking at this melange from my kitchen window. I’m planning to keep them there.
 Black eyed susans These black eyed susans somehow jumped from the big clump in the nearby bed. I think black eyed susans will have to leave.
 Purple Rain rose There are still a few scattered roses like Purple Rain.
 Raspberries Can I call these ripening raspberries ‘blooming’? I am surprised to have them so late in the year, but the bushes are full.
I want to thank Carol over at May Dreams Gardens and giving us the chance to see gardens all over this great land.
 Teri Rutherford and Daniel Greene Good Bunch Farm didn’t grow overnight. Like many new students entering the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Daniel Greene did not know what he really wanted to do. This was a new environment, filled with new people, new freedoms, and new ideas. He did know he was concerned about climate change and other environmental issues. Academics and learning were important but he was eager to get to work, get his hands dirty. But his ultimate goal was not clear.
As he began his studies he realized he was surrounded by farms and a university with agricultural programs. In 2008 he graduated with a degree in Sustainable Agriculture.
After graduation he began his years of peripatetic farming. He moved to Shelburne Falls and worked on a Conway farm as manager and planted his first field of vegetables.
There were a few years of moving and farming in Colrain, Shelburne Center, and Ashfield. Four years ago he was renting fields in Conway again. Last fall Greene decided it was time to move to his own land permanently.
He bought an old house in need of a lot of work in Charlemont that came with eight acres. By this time he had a partner, Teri Rutherford. They met while they were both working at Gloriosa and Co. in Ashfield. One of the strings in Greene’s bow is carpentry. He was working on the old barn which was used for special events – like weddings. With Gloria Pacosa’s help, Rutherford was learning how to be a wedding organizer. I thought it was very romantic that they met where they were surrounded by beautiful plants – and love.
Greene and Rutherford spent a lot of time last fall working on the house. At the same time Greene was also working on the year-end harvests and field work on his rented two acres in Conway. Rutherford was now working at the Valley View Farm in Haydenville, coordinating and pre-planning weddings.
By the time the holidays were in sight, the couple had finished enough electrical and plumbing renovations to make the house livable. They moved in.
Greene has now had a full season of planting and harvesting in back of his house, as well as finishing up in Conway. He and Teri gave me the tour of plantings and necessary work spaces. Early in the spring he had planted a quick buckwheat cover crop before planting, very aware of how important soil improvement is on a new property.
The long hoop house was mostly filled with all kinds of tomatoes climbing up wires to supports. Another long hoop house will join this one next spring.
Right now another long bed filled with tomatoes, ground cherries and tomatillos is being harvested. One section was filled with Goldenberry (Physalis peruviana). I had never seen much less heard of goldenberry before. “I’m growing it more for fun than anything, but this is a trial plot for Rutgers University. Rutgers is testing this crop for small farms with CSA programs because many small farms don’t grow fruit,” Green said.
Goldenberries are a small, cherry sized fruit that tastes like a mix of pineapple, strawberry, and sour cherry. These little fruits can be eaten raw, dried or made into jam. They can be harvested over six weeks and be a financial benefit to a small farm.
 Cucamelon Greene has other experiments. He showed me a section devoted to Mexican Cucamelon also known as Sour Gherkin Cucumber (Melothria scabra). This fruit shaped like a tiny watermelon ripens in75 days. I tasted one and it does taste a bit like a cucumber. They give a big harvest and they do look pretty on their vines.
There are fields that cannot be seen from the house because of an intervening woodland, but we walked up the hill and Greene pointed to plots planted with sorghum-sudangrass hybrids in preparation for planting next year. This hybrid is a soil builder, weed suppressor, and subsoil loosener..
“I’ll cut down the sorghum-sudangrass early in the spring, and chop it up and into the soil. I won’t be able to plant small vegetables in that plot, but squashes should be able to thrive,” he said.
Planting, growing and harvesting vegetables aren’t the end of a farmer’s work. Greene showed me a small production house where produce is washed and the leafy crops even get spin-dried in an old washing machine.
Then produce is stored in a chilled concrete room ready to be brought to the Friday Shelburne Falls Farmer’s Market and the Saturday, Ashfield Farmer’s Market. Greene also delivers vegetables to several restaurants including the Blue Rock Restaurant and Bar, Hearty Eats, Ashfield Lake House, and others.
Rutherford is responsible for keeping the Farm Stand supplied. The milkhouse part of the old dairy barn has been renovated to house a cooler, a table with a variety of vegetables – and honor system payment.
After the tour we walked back to the house and sat on the porch. I felt the serenity of the spot, looking across the lawn at the magnificent old trees. We chatted about all the work that had been done, and work that waited. There was a silence then Greene smiled a small smile. “I think I have pretty much accomplished my ten year plan.”
I smiled. I think he is ready for the next ten years to begin.
Between the Rows September 7, 2019
 Anemone ‘Robustissima’ Tomorrow it will be September. How did autumn creep up on us? There are only 22 days before we celebrate the autumnal Equinox on September 23. The real question is have we selected flowers that will bloom through the fall?
As I look around my garden I see a number of plants that have just begun to bloom. My ever larger clump of pale pink Japanese anemones, Anemone vitifolia ‘Robustissima’ has just begun to bloom. I love the way the dainty pink flowers dance on their delicate, but strong stems. I also love the way it has spread over the past four years, but in the spring I will need to do some thinning. I’ll have shoots for the Bridge of Flowers Plant Sale.
 Dahlia with bee The Bridge of Flowers can give interested gardeners a great lesson in the variety of form and color and the vitality of dahlias. Some dahlias begin blooming in late June, but more and more begin blooming as the season progresses. There are single dahlias that look like fat daisies, as well as pom pons that bloom early. Fancier dahlias include huge blossoms up to 10 inches across in colors from white to dark wine red.
Dahlias grow from tubers that are planted in the spring. At the end of the season the tuber, which now has additional tubers attached, needs to be dug up and stored for the winter. Next spring you will have three or four tubers to plant – or trade with a friend for a different dahlia style or color.
Potted chrysanthemums are already showing up in front of supermarkets. These mums, as we call them, will only give you pleasure this year, but you can grow mums that will come back every year. Like dahlias chrysanthemums come in many sizes, color and forms. We are lucky that we can go to the annual Chrysanthemum Show at the Lyman Greenhouse at Smith College from November 2-17 and see those brilliant flowers.
 Spoon mums and asters There are 13 classes of chrysanthemums from blossoms with incurved petals, reflex petals, through single and semi-double blossoms to spoon mums that have petals ending with a spoon shape.
I am not sure what category my Sheffield daisies fall into, but they are also classified as a chrysanthemum. Sheffies are great autumnal plants, cheerfully pink beginning in September and blooming well through October. They are a little floppy around the edges but they are wonderfully determined and dependable.
 Sheffield daisies in November I recently found it fascinating to learn that mums are related to dahlias, sunflowers, marigolds, zinnias, and cosmos, all of which will bloom into the fall
The large family of asters are familiar and important autumnal flowers. I have Wood’s Blue with a yellow center, a wonderfully spreading low growing aster. It prefers full sun, but mine tolerate late afternoon shade.
Alma Potchke is a popular aster, in a cheerful shade of deep pink with yellow centers. She is about three feet tall and in my garden she thrives in a very sunny spot.
Boltonia Snowbank is also an aster, thriving in the sun and forming an upright tall snowy white mound up to five feet tall. It is one of the latest blooming asters. In fact, all these three asters bloom from early to late fall.
 Boltonia Aster Frikartii is a blue/lavender aster with a yellow center that has been a standard in the fall garden for many years. Given good rich soil and sun it will form a flowery mound three feet tall and wide. It will bloom earlier than the other three asters, and finish earlier.
What all these asters have in common is their benefits to pollinators until late in the season. They also attract butterflies, and are ideal for bouquets.
There are other perennials that will bloom into the fall including pink turtlehead, Joe Pye weed, black eyed susans, phlox, and large sedums like Autumn Joy.
Large shrubs like hydrangea have an important place in the fall garden. Hydrangea paniculata is also known as hardy hydrangea because it tolerates winters well. By annual pruning you can manage its size which can range from 8 to 15 feet. Paniculata blooms on new wood which means pruning back in very early spring.
 Hydrangea “Firelight’ Hydrangeas don’t begin to make buds until summer begins. Those buds grow and open slowly through the summer and the fall. They prefer a rich soil and a sunny location.
Paniculatas are now available in colors other than white. Their colors change over the summer. This is just the way the color develops. Paniculata color is not altered by having more or less lime in the soil. In my garden there is Limelight, which slowly turns from white to a pale shade of green. So far it is about six or seven feet tall. If you prefer a dependably small green hydrangea Little Lime is waiting for you. Its size will range between three and five feet.
Angel’s Blush and Firelight are about the same size, the first will be a very pale shade of pink, and Firelight will become more and more red as the season progresses. These are now about seven feet tall and will get taller.
A little deadheading here and there will keep the rest of the garden looking neat and attractive through autumn days.
Between the Rows August 31, 2019
 John Zon Community Center Volunteers Ardie Kiem, Hope McCary, Nancee Bershoff, Wisty Rorabacher, Dorothea Soritiros, Tom Sullivan To my eyes Greenfield becomes more beautiful every year. Many homes have less grass and more flower gardens that bring smiles to passers-by. There are flowering trees everywhere in the spring. Baystate Franklin Hospital, Greenfield Savings Bank and others have beautiful public plantings.
One new public garden is specifically designed to support pollinators, the birds and the bees. This Meadow Garden was planted and is being maintained by volunteers in front of the John Zon Community Center on Pleasant Street. Whether you walk on the Pleasant Street sidewalk, or want to stroll on a path through the middle of the garden, you are surrounded by blooming plants in every season. Nancee Bershoff spearheaded this project and Wisty Rorabacher made plant identification tags for the plants.
The Energy Park
 My plot in the Energy Park – All native plants Many people walk through the Energy Park at the end of Miles Street. In 1997 an unused space began its transformation into a welcoming park with trees and native plants as well as a train caboose, a wooden train for young children, stone benches for everyone and a solar array to encourage our thinking about energy production.
Nancy Hazard is one of the people who organized a group to volunteer in refreshing and maintaining the Park plantings. Last year two tulip trees and a disease resistant elm were installed along with new plantings of native plants. It is native plants that satisfy the birds and bees in our area.
River Works Park
 Susan Worgaftik and Brookie Recently I visited the River Works Park on Deerfield Street with Susan Worgaftik, a volunteer. Worgaftik helped make this attractive and comfortable park that could be enjoyed by the local community. In 2012 Mayor Martin stated his plan for that space and worked with Worgaftik and a dozen other volunteers.
Because this park is built on a site previously used by a gas station, the ground was contaminated and could not be used as a playground.
Worgaftik pointed to Brookie, the steel sculpture a stunning element of the garden. “Every year the Wormtown Festival makes a donation to the town and that year, it was given to the park. That donation funded a sculpture which the mayor wanted. About 10 designs were presented but John Sendelbach’s brook trout, Brookie, was chosen. Then the call went out for stainless steel cutlery to help make the sculpture.
“Brookie moves with the wind and sometimes confuses people because the movement is so gentle. Local cultural councils paid for the lighting which is connected to town street lights right next to the park. Brookie is a beauty, day and night.”
Worgaftik and I sat on memorial benches and enjoyed the shade of the afternoon. She explained that plants, including trees are all donated. The town keeps the lawn mowed, but volunteers clean and organize in the spring and in the fall. “It doesn’t take a lot of labor to make the park a pleasurable place,” she said.
Greenfield Tree Committee
 John Bottomley, Nancy Hazard, Mary Chicoine Mary Chicoine has always loved trees, no matter where her professional life took her. That love took her to the Conway School of Landscape Design, where she earned her Masters Degree in 2010. With a nudge from Nancy Hazard it also took her to volunteering with the Greenfield Tree Committee.
She was able to use her Conway School tools to benefit the town when she worked for the FRCOG. She was able to get a challenge grant from the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR). With that grant she did a town tree inventory. It showed that the town needed more trees.
Chicoine is now retired and is working with a U.S. Forest Service grant that is paying for the planting of 800 trees over three years. Gala neighborhood celebrations accompanied the tree plantings on Haywood, Washington, and Birch Streets, as well as Oak Courts. “We’ll be training tree stewards, too,’ she said.
 Redbud on Birch Street Chicoine happily added that gas lines will no longer be put on the tree belt which is public property. Trees belong on the tree belt and gas lines belong under the road.
The DPW has also been busy. Chicoine said Mike Duclos and Paul Raskevitz have planted 200 trees this year.
Fiske Avenue Garden
Parks and trees have an important influence on a town’s personality, but small gardens are also important. A small group of volunteers are renovating the weedy slope along Fiske Avenue. Paul Labreque, a co-owner of the Root Cellar music-lounge bar under Mesa Verde, expressed his pleasure as weeds came out and plants went in. “I was so pleased to see these people working on the bank. It definitely brightens up that whole area. They were using beautiful plants, not just ordinary things. It’s pretty beautiful,” he said.
Volunteers are creating many beautifying projects. Main Street has shade trees. The parking lot behind Wilson’s has rain gardens with pollinator plants. Four Corners School has a curriculum that includes learning about plants and our environment.
The question is what can businesses do to make our town more beautiful? What can town committees do? What can organizations do? What can you do?
Between the Rows August 24, 2019
 Gardenlust by Christopher Woods Gardenlust by Christopher Woods
The first of the garden books I’ve been reading is Gardenlust: A Botanical Tour of the World’s Best New Gardens by Christopher Woods (Timber Press $40).
Gardenlust is a beautiful book with stunning photographs of amazing gardens. Woods has very specifically chosen fifty gardens created in the past twenty years. There are gardens from North America, mostly the U.S., then on to the other Americas, Europe, Africa, India, Asia and Australia and New Zealand. Needless to say the approach and plants in each area are very different.
As it happens I visited the Chinese Garden of Flowing Fragrance at the Huntington Botanical Garden in San Marino, California a couple of years ago. The Huntington also has a Japanese garden but this classical Chinese garden is very new.
The lake of Reflected Fragrance is in the center of the Garden. In this shan shui landscape with its plants, eroded limestone boulders, and lake the visitor sees mountains, water, and balance.
Obviously this garden is not located in a Chinese climate. However, California plants like sago palms, California incense cedar and other plants have found their place is this peaceful garden.
The importance of trees are much discussed as we consider climate change. The Tree Museum in Rapperswil, Switzerland is a small garden. Its two and a half acres are owner Enzo Enea’s collection of rescued trees. When he found trees about to be bulldozed and discarded, he brought them to his garden. There is an allee of bald cypress, and plants like a fragrant azealea in large pots. Sinuous clipped shrubs balance the strict geometry of hedges.
The Aloe Farm in Hartsbeespoort, South Africa is something of a display garden, a nursery and botanical garden. I am never likely to walk among the 400-500 species of aloe that grow in South Africa, but it is a delight to see their color and many forms in this wonderful book.
One Central Park in Sydney, Australia (1000 square meters) is made of two buildings, 16 and 33 stories high. The buildings are draped with hydroponic gardens which are comprised of 35,000 plants. There are also bougainvillea, and many other vines, and many grasses are planted on the roof. This garden and art installation attracted so many visitors, that an artificial lawn had to be installed around the buildings.
I hope I have tempted you to pick up this extraordinary book and continue exploring other wonderful gardens.
The Posy Book by Teresa H. Sabankaya
 The Posy Book by Teresa Sabankaya The Posy Book: Garden Inspired Bouquets That Tell a Story by Teresa H. Sabankaya (Countryman Press $24.95) is a delightful book about the messages you can send to friends and loved ones. A ‘posy’ is a small bouquet, and the message is created by the language of flowers.
There are other garden books that translate the language of flowers like Kate Greenaway’s Language of Flowers and Mandy Kirkby’s Victorian Flower Dictionary, but Sabankaya gives us a much larger vocabulary, as well as suggestions for specific flowers for arrangements.
The book suggests the flowers for many messages, and gives specific instruction on how to create a posy. Clear photographs make the process easy to understand.
Beyond that, she also suggests creating pretty sentiment tags the recipient can keep, a reminder of the sentiments expressed.
The Posy Book is not just a how-to. There is a history of the way flowers were used as symbols from ancient times. It is certainly easy to understand the appeal flowers have had over the centuries. Today flowers remain an important part of funerals, as well as weddings and other important occasions.
The final third of the book includes a large floral dictionary. In addition there are suggestions of particular flowers for specific occasions like goldenrod (encouragement), freesias (trust and thoughtfulness), dock (patience) and elderberry for kindness and compassion to be sent to a mother-to-be.
Flowers, plant and tree foliage, herbs, all can be used in a posy with its tender message.
The Green Giant by Katie Cottle
 The Green Giant by Katie Cottle The Green Giant by Katie Cottle (Pavilion $16.95) is only one of the garden books available for the young set. However, there is always something all of us can enjoy and learn. In this case, Bea and her dog are finding summer on grandpa’s farm boring until . . . Bea chases the dog who chases a cat. Bea finds herself at a greenhouse filled with plants. There she meets the Green Giant. At first she is frightened, but the Green Giant is friendly and tells her how he grew up in a gray city, until he ran away to the country.
All summer Bea, her dog and the Giant play among all the plants on the farm. When it is time to leave the Green Giant gives her seeds to bring back to the city. She spreads those seeds and the city becomes greener and greener.
All three books can inspire us about ways we can find to make our back yards, our home towns, and cities greener in every sense, and more beautiful.
Between the Rows August 17, 2019
 Mutation rudbeckia In mid-July I received an email from Peter Guertin in Orange who told me about the mutant rudbeckias he had growing in his garden. He included several photos of those mutant rudbeckias. One looked like a smile in the middle of the flower. One looked like a fat caterpillar growing across the center of the blossom. One blossom had two black eyes, almost back to back creating two attached blossoms. They were very odd flowers indeed. I was delighted to be invited to come and see them for myself.
Guertin’s email also passed on information from Dr. Kevin C. Vaughn about these mutant rudbeckias. “From what Dr. Kevin Vaughn has told me, they are called cristate or fastigate mutants. The normal plant meristem (growing point) is shaped like a dome. In the cristate type, the meristem converts to a linear structure”. That at least explained to me that mutant plants do exist, and they take different forms. But who was the Dr. Kevin Vaughn giving this information?
I should have known because right on the shelf near my desk is a beautifully illustrated book, Beardless Irises: A Plant for Every Garden Situation by Kevin C. Vaughn. It turns out Dr. Vaughn has many strings to his bow. Almost literally.
 Peter and Elaine Guertin Guertin grew up with Elaine McCobb who he ultimately married, and Vaughn. As a nine year old, Vaughn had already begun growing a collection of Siberian Iris, but he and Guertin and Elaine became friends through the music classes in their school. Elaine has now retired from teaching, but continues to play clarinet with many local bands, and Vaughn, who now lives in Oregon, plays a multiplicity of woodwinds with many orchestras, as well as carrying on in the plant world.
The Guertins remain dear friends of Vaughn and they showed me all the daylily hybrids he had sent them. Many of these were rejects from his daylily hybridizing efforts. But they were still beautiful.
 Vaughn hybrid daylily with Guertin’s hand to give a sense of size Vaughn also hybridizes succulents and has a new book titled Sempervivum: A Gardener’s Perspective of the Not-So-Humble Hens-and-Chicks. I am amazed that there are now seven thousand varieties of sempervivum available to gardeners. Guertin gave me a tour of some of the ‘hens and chicks’ that Vaughn had sent to him. I can hardly comprehend how many forms a particular kind of plant can take.
 Sempervivums When I got home I went and looked at the black-eyed susans in my garden. No mutants there. But right next to them was a clump of a similar plants. The leaves were much finer and the brown eye was small and looked a little like a blunt ice cream cone. There were not as many petals and they were also very fine. I did find 43 rudbeckia varieties listed and pictured online, but none seemed exactly like mine. I think it is Ratibida pinnata, sometimes known as Missouri coneflower. It is not a mutant.
Between Guertin’s mutant black rudbeckias, Vaughn’s hybrids and my ratibida I realized there are many ways that plants have changed over the ages. I am sure many of you have visited Smith College’s Lyman Plant house for the spectacular Spring Bulb Show or the autumnal Chrysanthemum show. I hope you have also visited the fascinating 60 foot mural telling the story of plants through the ages. 3,500 million years ago there was only bacteria and that lived in the water.
In the early Devonian period, 400 million years ago, the first tiny vascular plants, plants with food and water conducting tissue, began to evolve. Then came the Devonian Explosion which “resulted in plants becoming more complex, evolving roots, leaves, and more complex reproductive structures.” In the late Devonian period trees evolved.
The late carboniferous period was a time when trees in tropical swamps lived and died, ultimately transformed into coal.
It was not until the Cretaceous periods, 130-60 million years ago, that flowering plants of all sorts arose along with animal pollinators.
We are now in the Holocene era, from the birth of agriculture, breeding plants, and moving plants around the world.
More specifically but amazingly in just the last 200 years or so, Gregor Mendel (1822-1884) and Charles Darwin (1809-1882) were at work discovering ways that plants could be manipulated.
Now we gardeners wait for the arrival of plant catalogs to tell us about the latest hybrids available for our gardens. The very first farmers attended to the strongest, biggest, most delicious or other beneficial attributes, and took the seed from those plants to have stronger, better plants the following year. Then came cross pollinating.
The reason for creating hybrids is to give us bigger, or smaller plants, different colors, different flower forms, more dependability, or more tolerance of heat or cold.
Nowadays hybrids can also be created by genetic engineering/gene modification. There is a lot of debate over the wisdom of GMOs, which is a story for another day, but it certainly is a technique that is being used today.
For myself I enjoy native plants, cross pollinated plants, and surprising mutated plants. I am glad I got to visit the beauties and surprises of the Guertin garden.
Between the Rows August 10, 2019
 Cardinal plant, silver artemesia and helenium It’s been quite a year in the garden here in western Massachusetts. A long wet spring has led to a hot dry summer. I dug out our sprinkler and put it to use. The butterflies and bees have been visiting the cardinal plants which made me happyl
 Aesclepius for the Monarchs The Aesclepius is right next to the cardinal flowers and they are very good friends.
 Rudbeckia, daylilies and phlox The daylilies are nearly done in this bed but the rudbeckia and phlox will get us through the summer.
 Japanese anemone and bee The Japanese anemone, right in back of the daylilies and next to the phlox is just beginning to bloom. The bees are happy.
 Cone flower, bee balm, daylilies on the South Hellstrip. My neighbors across the street are still enjoying this floriferous hellstrip – otherwise known as the Tree Belt. No tree, but lots of pollinator flowers.
 Folksinger, a Buck rose Time to celebrate Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day! The Folksinger rose is having a very good year. It will stand in for the other roses that are still modestly blooming. I think it is too hot and dry, even with watering, to have them do their best.
There are other blooms, bits of coreopsis, yarrow, honeysuckle, and meadow rue still blooming. The three hydrangeas are coming into full bloom. Our South Border is quite a beautiful jungle. I thank Carol over at May Dreams Gardens for showing how to share our gardens all across our great land. Happy Bloom Day to you all.
 The Green Man Many of us have seen an image of the Green Man, his face made of hawthorn leaves and acorns, symbols of fertility. Many of us have no idea of why such an image might exist. And yet this ancient symbol was found in cultures older than the Roman empire, expressions of birth and death. The carving of a Green Man in what is now Iraq may date from as early as 300 BCE (Before the Common Era).
There are many images of the Green Man, sometimes solemn, sometimes smiling, and sometimes grimacing and biting on a branch. Many of these images are to be found in early Christian churches, a reminder of the cycle of life.
The images and beliefs in the power of the Green Man indicate that the human race recognized its dependence on nature in those ancient times. Many of us in these modern days are still, or again, realizing the importance of caring for Nature.
Celt Grant grew up with legends of the Green Man from his Scottish father. Grant’s father grew up in the North Pacific forests of Canada and was devoted to his Scottish heritage. He even named his children to reflect that heritage. I met Celt, but his siblings are named Scott and Gael.
 Celt Grant “My father had milking cows, but mainly he was a woodworker and kept his own woodshop. We all became woodworkers,” Grant said, adding that he is also a woodworker, and spent many years working as a preservation contractor.
“I’ve known about the Green Man since I was a teenager. He is the guardian of the forests and gardens. A benign force. He is very well known in Britain and Europe,” Grant said. Today his retirement house in Bernardston has Green Man images on the walls, a reminder of his Scottish heritage.
But clearly small Green Man plaques were not enough. A spring windstorm last year took down a large maple tree in his front yard. “What was left of the tree dried out over the year. The bark peeled off. I looked around for someone who could carve a Green Man out of the part of the trunk that was left.
“I found a woman in Royalston, Sue O’Sullivan, otherwise known as Chainsaw Sue. When she finished with her chain saw I painted the leaves and finished his face.”
I could not help admiring this congenial looking Green Man with his shining beard who watched over the hedges and flower beds at the edge of the green lawn.
Of course, many of us may be familiar with the experience of making a wonderful change in our gardens and then realizing that now it needs something more. “I began to rethink this whole front garden. I’m thinking about building a very low stone wall around the Green Man and planting a ground cover – maybe Waldsteinia,” he said.
After admiring the Green Man from every angle Grant showed me the way to the gardens behind the house. I was startled to realize that the house sat on top of a high hill with a steep drop to the lawns and gardens below. A graceful stone stairway led past the terraced plantings to the right and a dense planting of vinca to the left. From the stairway I could see a handsome shed, and a lush fenced vegetable garden.
 View of the Folly, vegetable garden and shed from the deck Grant said when he bought his house six years ago the back yard was full of farm junk and a dead elm tree. I could hardly take in the transformation.
Grant showed me the brick seating area that he calls his Folly. He seemed amused as I tried to figure out the use of the device set on a pedestal. “It is an Aeolian harp, a wind harp” he said with a smile. Then he confessed that it took more wind than was produced in that spot to really make much music. The harp, the pedestal, and the circular white seating were all picked up at the Brimfield Antique Flea Market – and other places. He told me the spring and fall Brimfield Markets were enjoyable, but I should never go to the summer Brimfield Market. Too Hot!
 Looking up the hill at Terraces and Trellises The Aeolian harp might have been a disappointment, but not the view of the back of the house. A long deck was high above the three terraces. It provided the necessary anchor for five trellises from the deck to the highest terrace. Grant explained that he was working to discover the best plants for those trellises. The clematis was doing very well but the others less so. Shade is the problem, but also an opportunity. At least that is the way I try to face a problem in the garden.
Grant and I share an appreciation for Martin’s Compost Farm soil. The soil there is stony and not very fertile. He needed good soil for his vegetable garden, and to create the terraces. My problem was flooding, but we are both grateful for Martin’s Compost Farm.
When it was time to leave I spent a few silent minutes communing with the Green Man. I thought of the cycles of a garden year, and the cycles of life. I also thought about the cycles of nature. I thought we should not take the benign powers of the Green Man for granted.
Between the Rows August 3, 2019
 Encaustic painting – Indigo Falls The title of Christin Couture’s Nearest Faraway Place exhibit might sound confusing to many people. For Christin Couture that Place is about more than a shadowy woodland, and rushing river water. “The view is like a theater. A theater is always changing. This view I have is of the changing seasons and weather. I never tire of this scene. The location is the anchor of all the paintings. Everything else is changeable,” she said.
For nearly 15 years she has been painting the same view from her house with its innumerable changes through the hours of the day and seasons of the year. The 25 paintings on view at the Oresman Gallery at the Brown Fine Arts Center are small. The wood panels measure only 10×8, 6×8, and 9×12 inches, though some are doubled. These paintings use the technique called encaustic. The paintings are mixed mediums using beeswax, candelilla wax, oil pigment, acrylics, and colored pencils.
“In 2005 I did the first painting. I was just experimenting, and I put the painting away in a drawer. Later, Bill, my husband, happened to find it and said they were great. So I started to do some more.
“I went to Peter Curtis of Mole Hollow Candles and he gave me a thick sheet of bees wax. I put it in the freezer because then I could break off a piece when I needed it. I was going to try it with various pigments. This was not at all planned. I was just doing, not thinking about an exhibit. I just got wrapped up in the image and in the colors,” Couture said.
“Encaustic painting is very physical, you can move it around. Its malleable, you can scrape off the wax if you make mistakes. You don’t have that benefit when you are working with other media. You can’t correct watercolor mistakes or acrylics. With oils you have to wait until they are dry. In addition, there is a beautiful translucence. That is the beauty of wax.”
 Sunset by Christin Couture Couture told me about the pleasure she feels working with beeswax. “Beeswax just smells wonderful when it is melting and you are working with it. I also use candelilla wax which comes from a Mexican plant. It is harder that beeswax. You can mix them. The beeswax can get a little harder or the candelilla a little softer. Sometimes I do an underpainting with acrylics and then I’d smooch around with the wax. It was all about experimenting. I felt it was a challenge.
“Bill is responsible for the view, Couture said. “Originally there was just a dense woodland running along a chasm near the house. For a while there were terrible storms and Bill had to remove the fallen trees. He began to be concerned about the view. He wanted to protect the whole length of the woodland beyond his slice. That didn’t happen, but he was able to work in the woods, pleasing his own eye. Actually I couldn’t look at the mess so I began to join him in the clean up.
“Bill is a landscape designer. He is also a sculptor. He does three dimensional art – thinking about spacing, incorporating a lot of elements, making them move. He makes them alive.”
Hosie told me about learning and working as a gardener when he was in high school. He is now in charge of all the landscaping around the Couture/Hosie house. There are flowers and greenery, and the artful woodland. I was particularly taken by his extraordinary moss garden, glowing like an emerald next to the house.
When I first met Couture she was doing many other kinds of painting. I remember paintings of enormous icebergs in a dark sea, and of children that seemed a bit Gorey-esque. Apparently, Edward Gorey thought so, too, because he invited her to visit and talk over a cup of tea – or absinthe.
I remember her beautiful colorful children’s book, A Walk in the Woods. Now I have to wonder whether it was the same woodland that inspired that earlier book, and these new paintings.
 Expulsion – Encaustic painting by Christin Couture The first encaustic paintings did not include figures, but recently she did add small figures like Adam and Eve being expelled from the paradise made of her woodland. She said it was easy to concentrate while working on these small paintings. There was also a special intimacy working on a small scale.
 Christin Couture and William Hosie I have often said that a walk down the garden path leads into many other paths from science to art. Monet had his water lilies, and shimmering haystacks. Georgia O’Keefe had her magnificent flowers with amazing color. Like artists, we all see and experience gardens and flowers differently.
Artists are a gift to us gardeners, because our gardens sleep for part of the year. We turn to paintings and our memories of the seasons past.
The Nearest Faraway Place will be on exhibit at the Oresman Gallery at the Brown Fine Arts Center on the Smith College campus. Oresman Gallery Hours: Mon – Friday 8:30am – 4pm, Friday, August 9, 5-8pm during 2nd Friday Arts Night Out. Exhibit will close August 29, 2019.
Couture has also exhibited her work at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center; DeCordova Museum & Sculpture Park; Monique Knowlton Gallery, NYC; Museo Leon Trotsky, and Galeria Arvil, Mexico City. If you are interested in purchasing any of her paintings you can reach her through her website, www.christincouture.com or email her at christincouture@icloud.com.
Between the Rows July 27, 2019
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