When most of us think about providing play space for our kids in the yard, we usually think about a swing set or a play structure of some sort. Schools tend to take the same sort of approach, but there is another way of looking at ‘play space’ and the potential it holds for learning at school, and at home. Ginny Sullivan began her teaching career at the Shady Hill School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. As a first grade…
I left home Tuesday afternoon, racing the storm, because I was planning on having lots of educational fun in Cambridge while I was staying there visiting with my son. I had scheduled a visit on Wednesday to see the Glass Flowers at Harvard's Museum of Natural History and then a meeting with other garden writers on Thursday. The storm stopped, but so did a lot of traffic in town. The Museum was closed! The Museum was closed but…
I have no affection for groundhogs, but Groundhog Day is one of my favorite movies. Made in 1993 it has come to be lauded as one of the best movies ever made. "The film is number thirty-four on the American Film Institute's list of 100 Funniest Movies, and was named the number eight Fantasy film inAFI's 10 Top 10. Roger Ebert has revisited it in his "Great Movies" series. After giving it a three-star rating in his original review, Ebert acknowledged in…
Nancy and Haynes Turkle have been concerned about the environment and the ways we affect it for a long time. Nancy’s graphic design company even worked for the Department of Environmental Protection for 15 years creating educational recycling materials. During their 20 years living in Groton they were involved in many community activities including helping to found a community garden. As the garden thrived so did cooperation between the members of the garden and the wider community. They…
Many of us probably don’t fuss very much when we are making a flower arrangement for our dining table. We run out into the garden and cut a little bit of whatever is in bloom and a few leaves, put them in a vase with little fuss and we are done. However if we are make a more important arrangement for a special party, for a friend’s wedding, or the church altar, we will need more flowers and…
Constance Spry found beauty in places others had not noticed. The unexpected drama of the plants she used surprised and delighted people. She turned to the vegetable garden and found one of her favorite plants – kale – but used other vegetables and fruits to brilliant effect. Her arrangements would not have the same startling effect today, because the ideas she propounded, her cry to forget about the rules and have fun, to see beauty in the commonplace…
“I want to shout out: do what you please, follow your own star; be original if you want to be and don’t if you don’t want to be. Just be natural and gay and light-hearted and pretty and simple and overflowing and general and baroque and bare and austere and stylized and wild and daring and conservative, and learn and learn and learn. Open your minds to every form of beauty.” Constance Spry Those passionate words came from…
Many of the plants in our garden have a name attached to them. I have grown the Madame Hardy rose, and assumed she was a real woman. Others have a name that is less obviously that of a real person like Anemone nererosa 'Robinsoniana'. But who are these people whose names are attached to plants. Who was Perry, or Mrs. R.O. Backhouse or the Vicomtesse Byng? It is easy to know who is being honored when you…
Fourteen years ago, at the age of 17, Jere Gettle put together his first list of heirloom seeds and mailed it to 550 gardeners. Now he oversees a veritable empire consisting of the Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company, the Bakersville Pioneer Village complete with seed store, bakery, restaurant, jail, herbal apothecary, music barns with monthly festivals and more in Missouri, and the Petaluma Seed Bank in California, which opened last spring. Most recently he bought the Comstock, Ferre…
As I review and renew in my garden, I thought I ought to look back at the year on the commonweeder. The 5 most popular posts were not what I expected. In February Mycotecture got many visitors - and continues to be visited. In March the New York Times had an article about Femivores, women who love their chickens too much. Or something like that. I have chickens so I had to comment. Chickens - and their houses…