When I walked through the garden the other day I realized how many red berries I have in the fall. Three years ago I noticed for the first time that my holly, ‘Blue Princess,’ and my cotoneasters had finally started producing berries. That berry production has gotten more prolific and beautiful each year. Hollies are dioecious plants, which means they need separate male and female plants to cross pollinate and produce fruits. While there are many holly cultivars…
Over the Columbus Day weekend we sat out on our friends’ patio in the golden sunset before going indoors for a wonderful supper. As we admired the fields and the pond our friends told us they had decided to build a pergola over the patio, much as we had, to provide cooling shade on hot summer afternoons. The question was, what should they plant to provide that shade? We have a wisteria growing on our pergola (which some call…
Gardens are planned, grow and develop over time as dependably as any single plant. Ray and Melanie Poudrier’s garden could be said to have begun when Ray’s father bought land in Hawley in 1942. Ray’s father joined his mother and their brood of thirteen children on Hawley summer weekends to see the latest developments. The family grew a vegetable garden, had an orchard and a blueberry patch. They even rented a cow for the summer to have milk…
The gardening year really has two planting seasons, spring and fall. Spring planting season is all a-rush with excitement because you can finally get your hands in the dirt, carefully chosen plants are arriving and a casual browse through the local nurseries has sent you home with a truckload of new plants and plans. And then there is the bliss of working beneath an ever warmer and brighter sun. Fall planting season tends to be less exuberant, with…
In our part of the world we are surrounded by trees. We are so used to seeing trees that we don’t really look at them anymore. When we do attend to them we see them in their entirety, trunk and an undifferentiated mass of leaves. As autumn approaches some of us pay a little more attention, the flame of maples, the sheen of dark oaks and the gold of birches, but still we are not seeing the whole…
The days are growing shorter. When I drive down my road I have begun averting my eyes from a maple branch that has burst into flame. Autumn is officially upon us. And yet there is a lot of bloom in my garden. One of the benefits of annuals is that many will bloom well into the fall. I have pots of snapdragons, petunias, osteospurnum and ‘Million Bells,’ a healthy blooming border of an annual salvia around the Shed…
We moved to Heath in the fall of 1979 and attended our first Heath Fair in 1980. However, we had heard about the Fair years before when we were living on Grinnell Street in Greenfield. Deb Porter of Heath was visiting her friend (and my temporary boarder) Wendy Roberts in my kitchen, but she had to cut the visit short that day in order to race back to Heath and bake pies for the Fair. Deb still works…
Sometimes in the summer we are annoyed by the bugs buzzing around our heads. We swat. We worry about the bees bumbling in the flowers and move children away. We get out spray cans of insecticide. What we need to do is think about the importance of bugs, often vital pollinators, without whom we would not have beautiful gardens, delicious fruits and vegetables, and a healthy life. Ever since honey bees have gotten so much publicity because of…
It’s been a rough year for the vegetable garden at the End of the Road. There was lots of rain in the spring which was great for all the gardens. Then rain became scarce and if I have learned anything in my years of gardening it is that vegetable gardens need regular watering to thrive and be productive. However, a new problem this year was bunnies! We haven’t had problems with rabbits in the past, but this year…
I just celebrated my 71st birthday and my daughter (my 50 year old daughter!) said that I was now “well into my 70s.” I’m not quite sure how to take that; in my own mind I am barely over 16. However, my muscles disagree and tell me I am definitely over 16, and even over 50. Fortunately I was able to visit with Rose Deskavich, sister member of the Greenfield Garden Club and mistress of a beautiful Greenfield…