Ornament in the Garden – Little Things Count
For more Wordlessness this Wednesday click here.
Snow, Mud, Mist – and Tulips
On February 25 I took a photo of the tulips I was forcing. This little pot of bulbs was clearly not developing at the same time. But even as the most advanced tulip began to decline, the others were just coming into bloom. As I watched the decline of my tulips, the colors changing, the petals crinkling I was reminded of a practice at a meditation center I once read about. On the first day of a week…
Talcott Greenhouse and the Spring Bulb Show, Mt. Holyoke College
While the rest of us have been shivering in our snowy landscapes, Russell Billings, Director of the Talcott Greenhouse at Mt. Holyoke College, has been busy cooling and slowly warming hundreds of bulbs and other blooming plants coaxing them to a perfect stage of bloom. On Saturday, March 2 the doors of the greenhouse will open to the public to present Primavera, this year’s bulb show featuring glorious tulips and daffodils as well as many plants of the…
International Women’s Day – Beijing Memories
On April 16, 1989 my husband and I flew to Beijing where I had taken a job with a women's magazine. There I first learned of International Women's Day where it is a big event. And certainly I learned a lot about the life of Chinese women while working as a 'polisher' for Women of China English Monthly. I worked with translators (whose English was excellent) who translated articles about women in China's history, and the women who were taking…
A Week Ago Today
Over the week the snow has been refreshed by snow showers. Drifts and plow banks by the roadsides remain deep and high. It still feels like deep winter. For more Wordlessness this Wednesday click here.
Look Within for Spring Bloom
The best place to find fresh spring bloom is to look within the greenhouses at Mt. Holyoke and Smith Colleges. Both colleges are having their annual spring flower shows and giving us the strength to get through these last days of winter. This looks just the supermarket primrose that I planted years ago and that blooms every spring in the dappled shade in back of our house. Could it be that the goddess Flora has found her way to reign…
Plant Hunters – John Bartram and Chinese Wilson
Where do the plants in our garden come from? How did plants get from the heights of the Himalayan mountains, or the Appalachian mountains, to our gardens? It would be hard to count the number of plants in our gardens that were first seen by the intrepid explorers of the last three centuries. John Bartram (1699-1777) of Philadelphia was possibly the first American botanist and plant hunter. Bartram was a farmer with little formal education, but he was…