Sampler of White Flowers for Summer and Fall

  • Post published:02/16/2015
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Last week I talked about some of the white spring flowers, but a whole array of white flowers bloom well into the fall. I can only mention a few. White Flowers for Summer One of the more unusual white flowers that grows in my garden is Artemesia lactiflora. Most of us think of artemesias as having silvery foliage and insignificant flowers. My Artemesia lactiflora grows in a very upright clump with reddish-maroon stems and very dark toothed foliage.…

White Flowers That Bloom in the Spring – Tra la

  • Post published:02/09/2015
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As I look out at the newly white fields, I cannot help but think about the white flowers that bloom in the spring. There are so many, from shrubs, tall perennials, and low blooming groundcovers. White flowers bring a cool serenity to the garden and they are visible after sunset in the gloaming. Many of us have a desk or a favorite chair by a window where we read or do other close work like quilting. When we…

My Amaryllis Mystery

  • Post published:01/19/2015
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I suppose my amaryllis mystery began on December 11, 2014 when I rather belatedly bought boxed amaryllis bulbs ready for planting and blooming. I knew they would not bloom in time for Christmas, but glamorous amaryllis flowers  are welcome in January and February as well. I potted all three bulbs up as directed. I did notice that the Athene white amaryllis seemed to have been pruned back more severely or more  recently than the other two. I kept…

Time to Plant the Garlic

  • Post published:10/19/2014
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It is not widely known but I was crowned the Garlic Queen at the Heath Fair this year. It is only right that I was crowned by Rol Hesselbart, who gave me my first garlic cloves to use for planting. Hesselbart has been growing garlic and and saving the best bulbs to use as seed for many years. The bulbs he gave me were easily twice as big as the garlic you usually buy at the supermarket. It…

Spring Blooming Bulbs – Familiar and Unusual

  • Post published:09/20/2014
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  These chilly days and cool nights have got me thinking about spring. Or more specifically the need to plant spring blooming bulbs this fall. There is something about gardening that makes us gardeners keep one eye a season or two ahead, even as we work with the challenges and pleasures of the present. Catalogs for spring bloomers have already arrived. The Old House Gardens catalog is a favorite because I love thinking of the long history of…

Garlic Harvest Fresh Out of the Ground

  • Post published:07/22/2014
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This morning I dug up my 35 hard neck garlic bulbs. My garlic harvest is looking pretty good and I am looking forward to entering them in the Heath Fair next month. Garlic is a wonderful crop. So easy. You begin with good seed garlic which you can get from a friend as I did, or go to a garlic farm like Filaree where you will be amazed at how many kinds of garlic there are to sample…

Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day – May 2014

I begin this Garden Blogger's Bloom Day post with a blooming mistake. Maybe three years ago I thought coltsfoot might be a good groundcover on the Rose Bank. I was only thinking of the flowers and the size of the early spring foliage - not what it would look like in June, July, August, September and October. Or how very rapidly and strongly it would spread. I don't mind the violet which are everywhere here, and in the…

Seeking Spring at the Leonard J. Buck Garden in NJ

  • Post published:05/11/2014
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  I went to New Jersey, the Garden State, to search for spring and found it at the Leonard J. Buck Garden in Far Hills. My brother Tony and his wife Joan took us to the 29 acre garden which was originally part of Mr. Buck’s estate. In the 1930s Buck began working with Zenon Schreiber, a well-known landscape architect, to create a naturalistic garden that incorporated the various rock outcroppings, the sinuous Moggy Brook and two ponds.…

Touring Colleges with Rory

  • Post published:04/24/2014
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High schools are off this week so we had the chance to go touring colleges with grandson Rory. It was pouring all during the UMass-Lowell campus tour, but we were undaunted, and got to see the O'Leary Library, the bookstore, a dining hall, a classroom and lots of students very busily going about their business. We were also fortunate enough to speak to one of the faculty members who gave us lots of  good advice. While we were…

In the Pink at the Lyman Plant House, Smith College

  • Post published:03/09/2014
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Banish the winter blues and get In the Pink at the Annual Bulb show at the Smith College Lyman Plant House. This annual show, always fabulous, is running from now until Sunday, March 16. It is no surprise to me that the powers that be would choose In the Pink as the theme for this year’s show. I love pink, as anyone who strolls down the Rose Walk can attest.  But there is something spring-like about all shades of…