Its been a busy weekend with our Annual Family Meeting on Sunday. There was so much talk that I never even thought about the camera until we were half way home with a new pair of grandsons, Anthony and birthday boy Drew (13!) from Texas. Then, yesterday while 'The Major' organized the boys to set up the blueberry frame, mow the lawn, and relax in the Cottage Ornee, a friend and I drove over to The Mount, Edith…
Three perennials that get A plus grades in my garden are achillea, otherwise known as yarrow, antirrhinum or snapdragon and astilbe. My first awareness of achillea was the roadside weed, or wildflower, depending on your point of view. Roadside yarrow is usually white with the typical achillea flat topped cluster of tiny flowers. The ferny green foliage is pretty even when the plant is not in bloom. When I began to learn about perennials from my garden mentor…
When I went to the Hawley Artisans and Garden tour a beautiful exhibit of quilts , old and new, was on display in the East Hawley Meetinghouse. Flowers are a common motif on quilts. These embroidered squares reminded me of the embroidery my mother and her sisters did when I was a young child. Even I learned to embroider. None of us made embroidered quilts, though. This charming quilt by Connie Harris shows the kind of world we…
We enjoyed our 13 year old granson's company all last week - a very busy week. There was canoeing, dinner parties, cake baking, mowing lawns, feeding chickens and all manner of End of the Road activities. One day we returned to Birch Glen Stables which is practically around the corner for his second riding lesson. The first was last year, but he had not forgotten how to groom and put on the saddle. This year the lesson was…
Need I say more?
Yesterday we went to Tyngsboro to celebrate the Fourth of July with friends, but most especially to celebrate our daughter's 50th birthday with her family. This is our third child to celebrate a 50th, the last two girls are not far behind. The birthday cake provided by Diane's best friend showed a hill with Diane on the downside. Diane laughed and asked me if I remembered the cake she had made for me on my 30th birthday? It…
On Monday I tripped over a hose and fell. On Tuesday I hobbled to the doctor for X-rays to prove nothing was broken and that the titanium hip was hold firm. The doctor said, "No gardening - for two weeks!" Talk about impossible. My husband has been out in the garden every evening, and yesterday daughter Betsy arrived to put in a full day clipping the grass around the roses on the Rose Walk. She did some other…
What is a garden for? It depends on the garden, of course.Vegetable gardens are for feeding us. Herb gardens are for bringing us extra savor and health. Meditation gardens are to give us moments of serenity. Ornamental gardens are to give us pleasure. But all gardens can be shared --- doubling their pleasure and utility, of whatever sort. Sometimes sharing our gardens can also support a noble project. That is what will be happening in Heath and…
Rain. Downpours. But the intrepid Garden Club of Amherst members were undaunted. I met them for a tour of the Elsa Bakalar/Scott Prior garden. In the background you can see that the old rhododendrons in back of the house near the woodland path are still blooming. The daffodils are long gone It's iris season in the garden right now. The Siberians don't mind how much rain they get. Of course, there are other bloomers right now like these…
The old joke goes that if you don’t lock your car doors in August you’ll return and find the back seat filled with zucchini. You might be happy about this if you don’t have a vegetable garden, after all zucchini is a versatile vegetable that can be used in a number of delicious ways, is nutritious supplying protein, vitamins A and C and numerous other good elements but no cholesterol, and contains only 20 calories per one cup…