Groundbreaking Food Gardens is a great book to take new vegetable gardeners into an exciting and varied garden world this very long slow cold spring. The snow is finally gone, even here in Heath, and bulbs are blooming and tender shoots are evident all through the perennial beds. I can finally think about the vegetable garden. I actually have two vegetable gardens. One is very small. The Front Garden, or Early Garden, as I sometime call it, is…
The April 2014 issue of Fine Gardening magazine has an article by Peter Kukielski, former curator of the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden at the New York Botanical Garden titled Easy Picture Perfect Roses. Peter knows all about 'Easy' roses because during his tenure at that garden he ripped out 200 or so of the roses in the garden that needed pesticides and fungicides to survive and then replaced them with 693 roses that did not need that kind…
Nancy Ondra has been gardening for over 20 years and she has ten books to show for it and Five Plant Gardens: 52 ways to Grow a Perennial Garden with Just Five Plants (Storey Publishing $18.95) is her latest. This book has something for everyone, but it takes garden design to a new level of ease and understanding for the novice gardener. Even an inexperienced flower gardener understands pretty quickly that you put tall plants in back…
I'm just starting to read Five Plant Gardens by Nancy J. Ondra and I find it such an encouraging book. The book is divided into two sections, one section for sunny gardens and one section for shady gardens. She begins with one color gardens like the Bright White Garden for a sunny location. She suggests 'David' phlox, 'White Swan' coneflower, 'Snow Fairy' caryopteris, lambs ears, and candytuft, but gives alternatives and a planting plan. It is her planting…
Slow Flowers by Debra Prinzing is the perfect book to be browsing through on this frigid day. The temperature is only 20 degrees, but the sun is brilliant and the ground sparkles with frozen snow crystals. As I turn the pages of the sumptuously illustrated book, my own summer garden exists in my imagination as it never has before. Debra's 52 weeks of bouquets from local flowers from 'garden, meadow and farm' are full of surprises and inspiration…
I guess the Good Reading Roundup continues here in my Between the Rows column for Dec. 14. The vegetable garden has been put to bed, and right now is neatly covered with an inch of snow and ice. The planting, cultivating, harvesting and preserving seasons are past; now we are in reading season. For me, plans to make things better usually start right about the time I am in mid-harvest. And there are always…
This is my first Reading Roundup. Over the year I have 'reviewed' a number of books, any of which would make an excellent holiday gift. Good reading is one of my favorites gifts to give, and to receive. Over the next couple of days I'll be giving a note about each of them again, with a link to the original post. All but one of the books were sent to me by the publisher and you may note…
As my granddaughter Caitlin always says, "We always know WHAT Granny will give us for Christmas, we just don't know WHICH." The shopping is just about done but I haven't done much wrapping yet. No one knows who will get the cookbooks, scifi books, business books, garden books, poetry, books about Christmas, novels OR magazine subscriptions. Ladybug! Do you have a gift specialty? Does your family know WHAT if not WHICH?
Betsy Johnson is our winner! Practically a neighbor over there in Williamstown. Timber Press will send Seeing Flowers directly after I have her address, and I'll be sending her The Roses at the End of the Road. Everyone can order their own copy of The Roses at the End of the Road, or a copy to give as a gift to anyone who loves roses or tales of life in the country by emailing me at commonweeder@gmail.com or…
Beatrix Potter is known to almost every parent, but not as well known as her most famous creation, Peter Rabbit. In Marta McDowell’s new book Beatrix Potter’s Gardening Life: the plants and places that inspired the classic children’s tales (Timber Press $24.95) we meet Peter’s progenitor. In 1890, the 24 year old Beatrix bought Benjamin Bouncer at a pet shop and used him as the model for Peter for some paintings that she sold. That was the…