The larch tree (Larix) is unusual because it is a deciduous conifer. It has needles that turn golden in the fall and then fall off. It also has little cones. In the spring the larch greens up with soft green needles on graceful branches. The photo above shows my friend's larch and a pine growing in friendly proximity. Early this spring I got a call from the brother of a friend who said he found a larch seedling…
Thick frost on the ground this morning at 7:30. And yet, The cosmos still blooms exuberantly, but the morning glory may have seen its last morning.
I just came back from checking the Larch seedling I was given ten days ago. I watered it the first couple of days, but the recent weather has been perfect for transplanting - overcast, cool (but not freezing) and showery. The tree seems to have settled in well. So far. Larch trees, tamarack, hackmatack, or more properly Larix laricinia, are that mysterious thing, a deciduous pine tree. This is a native tree that can reach 75 feet tall. It does…
The Boston Flower Show is back! There were flowers everywhere, in all kinds of arrangements and gardens. There was also a lot of water - a pond like this one with a stone 'lily pad' that appeared to float on the water. The pond was surrounded by azaleas, conifers and bulbs. I may have to do a whole posting about water in fountains and streams. There were flower arrangements like this simple vase of brilliant tulips for a…
“The garden just grew,” Bruce Aune said with a slight shrug as we sat in his living room and looked out across a still green lawn to a neat curving border. All the perennials had been cut back, but shrubs, evergreen and deciduous, and small trees remained, providing the bones and structure of this garden. While it is true that the garden had changed over time as Bruce and his wife Anne moved into retirement, it had not…
Sometimes I think you have to be a mature person to fully appreciate evergreens. In youth, when we are changing and changing again, it is flowers and trees that are always changing in their own seasons that catch our attention, but evergreens are more stable. Which is not to say that their growth, even from season to season is static, but that the changes are more subtle. This fall, when the deciduous trees were bare, I…