It seemed a little early but on March 6th I started some seeds indoors. Now, three weeks later it seems like it might have been totally unnecessary. I have neighbors who tilled sections of their garden and have already planted a number of cold hardy plants: lettuces, spinach, snap peas, carrots and beets. Who can gauge the risks in times like these? I might have been too cautious in starting my seeds, but my neighbors may have been…
Yesterday my earliest daffodils began to bloom - just in time for temperatures to plunge from their unseasonable summer highs. Nothing is certain in a garden. How many times do we have to relearn this lesson? The following takes me back a couple of weeks - before we were all boldly planting seeds. Beginning tomorrow days will be brighter longer. The sun will not set until 6:46 pm. It will seem like spring has arrived – even though…
Spring was in full bloom inside the Seaport World Trade Center where the Boston Flower Show and BLOOMS! featured display gardens with reflecting pools, landscapes fit for a hobbit, Japanese maples, fountains, school gardens with veggies and flowers, as well as rooms filled with specimen plants and flower arrangements awaiting the intense gazes of the judges. This year I was not attending the flower show merely as an admirer, but as a volunteer judge. Earlier this spring I…
When I asked readers to tell me about some of the plants they absolutely had to have in the garden, I got a variety of answers. Linda Tyler said she had to have coral bells, heucheras, in her garden because there is such variety in the foliage color and size. Tyler did not specify which varieties she has in her garden, but a quick look through the garden catalogs like Plant Delights Nursery shows photos of Tiramisu with…
Snow and ice are slowly melting on our Heath hill, but we are intermittently being teased by 50 degree temperatures. Will we really have an early spring this year? Will the ancient forsythia bushes at the edge of my lawn really bloom properly this year? The forsythia bushes were here when we moved at the beginning of the bitter winter of 1979. Spring did not arrive promptly and we watched the forsythia put on a half hearted show…
The Native Seeds/SEARCH catalog arrived in my mailbox this past week. This company located in Tucson is new to me, and so is the term native seeds. Included with the catalog that offers a variety of open pollinated seed from amaranth to watermelon was a tiny separate chart listing the best ways to choose seed. They say “Whenever possible, source your seeds first from the area where you live. Seed libraries, seed exchanges and local seed companies that…
Ellen Sousa now lives in Spencer on a small farm with animals, veggies, and many native plants that have earned it certification as a Wildlife Habitat and Monarch Waystation. But it was not always so. As a child Sousa tramped the woods with her father and read Who Really Killed Cock Robin, an environmental mystery by Jean Craighead George. My daughter Betsy also read this book in sixth grade and she determined at that moment to become an…
Seven weeks ago I gave myself an early Christmas present – a bowl in a classic shape (actually a sort of plastic flower pot) and four succulent plants. I had been inspired by reading Succulent Container Gardens by Debra Lee Baldwin which I had reviewed in this column earlier in December. I am not terribly good at caring for houseplants except for the succulents: a jade tree, an enormous orchid cactus, and Christmas and Thanksgiving cactus I had…
The Green River Ambrosia crew - standing L-R Brendan Burns, Will Savitri, Garth Shaneyfelt. Kneeling L-R Sandy Pearson, Sam Dibble Mead is an ancient drink, essentially a wine made with honey instead of grapes. The great Norse hero Beowulf drank mead and feasted in a great mead hall 1500 years ago. Somewhere along the line mead fell out of favor as a popular drink, even in Scandinavia, but three young Greenfield men, Garth Shaneyfelt, Will Savitri, and Sam…
The last planting season of the year is late fall when gardeners are racing to get in all the crocus, daffodil, scilla, snowdrop and tulip bulbs in the ground so they can look forward to an early spring full of color. But fall is not the only bulb planting season. There is a whole array of bulbs that need to be planted in the spring to bloom gloriously and often exotically in the summer. Many summer blooming bulbs…