Do you have a favorite chair? Is it near a window? Does your dining table sit near a window? Do you enjoy the view from your window? Oddly, our new house in Greenfield does not have many windows that look out at the garden. Only one upstairs window (in my office) gives a view of the back yard. The kitchen window is too high to see much of anything except the most westerly area of the garden. Fortunately…
Before I end my discussion about garden planning, I want to add a few words about the view from the house, or more specifically, the view from a window. We spend time in the garden working, and time socializing in the garden, but we can also enjoy the garden when we are inside the house. Do you have a kitchen or dining table by a window that looks into the…
On Saturday my husband and I walked up what we call The Lane, the remnants of the old road that once led all the way to the next town of Rowe. We walked up the hill between two fields and into the woods. We have done some logging in the woods, but when we walk there these days the extensive number of trees and limbs that have been toppled and broken are due to the big ice storm in…
Garden ornaments were everywhere at the New England Grows trade show in Boston this past weekend. Concrete and ceramic Buddhas, saints, rabbits, wooden trellises and rain chains . These containers reminded me of the hypertufa workshop that the Bridge of Flowers will be scheduling in April. I want to make a garden trough for alpines. Or succulents. As I wandered around I saw this display of miniature and dwarf conifers - suitable for Fairy Houses. I only know…
The view from my bedroom window on January 27, 2012. Ice is heavy. And to think I was planning to collect forsythia branches to force today. View from the Welcoming Platform. I have photographed this tree in every season and every weather. It is always beautiful. Temperatures hover at 32 degrees and the stream keeps flowing.
I rarely participate in Foliage Follow-up, but Pam Penick at Digging has prompted me to take a good look at the foliage around me at this time of the year. I have owned this orchid cactus (Epiphyllum) for a number of years. I pay almost no attention to it which is shameful, because it would bloom regularly and magnificently if I did. You can see I don't even give it the pedestal it deserves. For the past year…
Christmas celebrations end for us on January 6, the Feast of the Epiphany. The wise men have finally arrived, the last gifts have been given and the party is over. But maybe not quite. When I take the Christmas tree down, I put it outside and decorate it for the birds. The ornaments are simple, but tasty, peanut butter smeared into pine cones and then rolled in bird seed. A tie can be ribbon, yarn or twine, no…
Many family Christmas memories revolve around the Christmas tree. These stories rarely have to do with the magnificence of the tree. In fact, Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree may be our culture’s most famous Christmas tree, standing for the true meaning of the season. We have many family stories about our Christmas trees beginning with our first Christmas in Greenfield in 1971. I was a single mother of five children when I came to town. Our life had changed…
As I look out my window today the ground is a tapestry of beige, green and white. The meadow grasses have died back, but the lawn is a brilliant green because it has loved this long cool, but not frozen, autumn and there are still patches, large and small, of the snow that keeps tantalizing us. Winter may be coming, but it is shy this year, stepping out and then retreating. The winter garden can be a challenge…
We have had many different kinds of Christmas trees over the years. Below is a column I wrote in 2005 that chronicles our history in Christmas trees. Many family Christmas memories revolve around the Christmas tree. These stories rarely have to do with the magnificence of the tree. In fact, Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree may be our culture’s most famous Christmas tree, standing for the true meaning of the season. We have many family stories about our Christmas trees…