In the olden days planting wisdom said you needed a $5 hole for a fifty cent plant. Inflation is everywhere. Now when I guy my $35 Proven Winners Pinky Winky hydrangea I know I need at least a $50 hole. This was a lesson I gave my daughter last weekend when I learned she was much given to taking out a shovelful of soil, sticking a plant in and considering the job done. My $50 hole is 24…
When we were at Betsy's house yesterday we looked at some shrubs that we all thought were dead. The leaves were twisted, curled and brown. We were having trouble identifying what the shrubs were until we found one that had a few undamaged leaves. Oh yes, Betsy said. Magnolias. Well, the shrubs aren't dead, they were hit with frost, and with luck they will recover. At our house we realized that the kiwi on the shed was also…
If there is anything more enjoyable than an afternoon working in one's own garden, it is spending an afternoon working with a daughter in her garden. Yesterday we visited Betsy for a garden consultation, nursery shopping and planting day. Betsy has done some landscaping around her house which is built on sand that hides many many stones. In fact the house is directly across the road from a granite quarry whose boulders form a major element of the…
These late daffodils have just started to bloom, but all the others are pretty well done. And I am celebrating having more than bulbs to declare on this Bloom Day. I do still have a few grape hyacinths blooming, as well. Barren strawberry, Waldsteinia, is one of my successes. I bought this native groundcover at Nasami Farm spring 2009 and it is spreading nicely. They did so well I bought more in the fall. This is part of…
I got a call from Edwin Graves who said I had to come and see the wisteria on his rental property in Greenfield. He told me it had climbed into two cherry trees, but he didn't tell me those two trees were 60 feet tall, and that the wisteria climbed into the very top reaches. The Graves bought this Greenfield house for her parents back in about 1981. Since they moved out in 1989 the house has been…
While it is true that I visited New York City to explore parks like the one above, and the New York Botanic Garden, I saw things I hadn't expected. I didn't know that the park that runs along the Hudson River with all its plantings and seating included a temple. At least it might be a temple but there is something chess - like about this arrangement as well. Odd and mysterious, although the gentlemen there eating? meeting?…
Jeannie Bartlett, a senior at The Academy in Charlemont, has many interests including “farms, food, the environment, health and community” which she put together in a delicious way. Local Lunches, her Independent Senior Project, fed Academy students a monthly lunch composed of local ingredients all year. Todd Sumner, Academy Headmaster, explained “Senior projects are intended to extend a student’s classroom learning to provide service, and to apply and implement their learning. Students have to be responsible for a…
The first unpleasant surprise was frost! The 7 am temperature on our thermometer on the north side of the house, but in the sun, said 42 degrees and I rejoiced. But my husband brought in the cat's frozen water dish from the welcoming platform. The first shock. Then I went out to open our ad hoc cold frame and the inside was all frosty. I'd better mark this frost date in my Journal. The second, and final, unpleasant…
It was quite a week, with two New York days, visiting parks, and the New York Botanical Garden's Emily Dickinson Exhibit. (See my earlier posts) I came home to my own show - the Sargent Crab in the mucky Sunken Garden is in full bloom. So far it has been able to hold on to it's leaves and flowers but ever since I got home late Wednesday the winds have been blowing, and the temperature has been dropping.…
The wisteria that has climbed the arbor over our piazza was planted late in the summer of 1990. There was a delay in finishing the arbor and I didn't realize that wisteria needed good rich soil. The poor wisteria was in trouble right from the start. In 1999 we said if it hadn't reached the top of the arbor by the following year, we were going to give up and pull it out. Thus threatened it did reach…