Silent Spring by Rachel Carson Celebrates 50th Anniversary

  • Post published:01/11/2013
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Silent Spring by Rachel Carson can possibly be credited with starting the popular environmental movement. When the book was published in 1962 it was chosen as a Book-of-the-Month and was on the New York Times best seller for weeks. The book remains relevant today. The Western Massachusetts Master Gardener Association is sponsoring a Reading Silent Spring Together program with three free talks by local experts with community discussion.  There is no charge, but readers are asked to pre-register because…

Enjoying Christmas Gifts

  • Post published:01/03/2013
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Those who know me know  that books, or a bookstore gift certificate, are my favorite Christmas gifts. Latin for Gardeners, Over 3,000 plant names explained and explored by Lorraine Harrison is a beautiful book. The textured cover even feels beautiful, and the interior pages are subtly tinted with green. Special sections of Plant Profiles, information about Plant Hunters like Sir Joseph Banks and Jane Colden and Marianne North, and Plant Themes like The Qualities of Plants, are a deeper but…

New England Gardener’s Handbook

  • Post published:12/22/2012
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Jacqueline Heriteau and Holly Hunter Stonehill, along with Liz Ball, James Fizzell and Joe Lamp’l have put together the New England Gardener’s Handbook: All you need to know to plan, plant and maintain a New England garden  (Cool Springs Press $24.99) that focuses on the plants that will thrive in the our soil and climate. Heriteau and Stonehill have been gardening and cooking together for many years; they are mother and daughter. Ball, Fizzell and Lamp’l will be…

Garden Books for the Young

  • Post published:12/21/2012
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I've written  about a number of garden books for  the young over the past year. They are not how-to books although there are books that do lead a child  into  the garden with real instructions. My friend Kathryn Galbraith wrote Planting the Wild Garden and turned science into poetry. She reveals all the ways that Mother Nature spreads seeds over the landscape using the wind and rain, and hot sun that makes seed pods burst. The rivers and…

We Have a Winner!

  • Post published:12/11/2012
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We have a winner. Eileen Taylor will recieve a copy of Beautiful No Mow Yards from Timber Press and a copy of The Roses at the End of the Road from me. Congratulations, Eileen! Thank yous to all who helped me celebrate my fifth anniversary of blogging.

Last Chance for Celebratory Book Giveaway

  • Post published:12/10/2012
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Today is your last chance to leave a comment here  by midnight tonight and participate in the my book giveaway. You could win a copy of Beautiful No Mow Yards AND my own book The Roses at the End of the Road. I have enjoyed these past five years that has brought so many wonderful new people into my life. And useful and inspiring books like Beautiful No Mow Lawns from Timber Press. I will choose a name…

Happy Fifth Blogoversary to Me – and Giveaway

Today is my fifth blogoversary. Five years ago, on the Feast of St. Nicholas, with  a lot of help from my husband, I gave myself the gift of the commonweeder blog. I had no idea where it would take me or the gifts it would give me. Because of this blog I joined 60+ other fascinating garden bloggers in Buffalo and Seattle for Flings that took us to amazing gardens, meetings with creative gardeners, and gave me lively…

Beautiful No-Mow Yards by Evelyn Hadden

  • Post published:12/05/2012
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What has your lawn done for you lately? That is the question asked by Beautiful No-Mow Yards by Evelyn J. Hadden and published by Timber Press ($24.95). My husband would answer “Not much.” He was happy to find a strong boy to give the lawn a final mowing just before Thanksgiving. The lawn requires a fair amount of time and equipment to keep it mowed, even on the irregular schedule we manage to keep. We never fertilize or…

Happy Birthday Gertrude Jekyll

  • Post published:11/29/2012
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Gertrudy Jekyll (1843-1932) was one of the great British gardeners. It is her gardens and writings that essentially define the British perennial garden to this day.  This is the 169th anniversary of her birth in in London. Though she did travel throughout England, Europe and even the United States she spent most of her life in Surrey, England. There she built her final house and garden, Munstead Wood, with Edward Luytens, the well known architect.Most of the photographs show…

John Bunker and His Wanted Posters

  • Post published:11/06/2012
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  John Bunker, heritage apple expert, and author, distributes WANTED posters for the old apples he is searching for. He gives a pretty full description of the apple's appearance from size, shape, color of skin, color of flesh, stem size, and seeds. I've learned some new words like Acuminate which refers to the tapering shape of the seed cavity. I don't know what the 'eye' of the apple is. I know the opposite of the stem end is called the 'basin,' and has…