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…
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…
My Monday Record is a day late because I have been so busy with all the weeding, trimming, pruning and planting. There is so much left to do that it seems I am not making progress, but I am! The roses are making progress too. This is a rose bush given to me by the Purington family on Woodslawn Farm in Colrain. The flowers are small, about one and a half inches across, but intensely fragrant - and…
The Holiday Weekend started for me on Friday afternoon when I visited the Heath School's Garden Day. The classes have been working before now, of course, but on Garden Day, the whole day is given over to planting, weeding, mulching - and learning. I am impressed with their energy, which I expected, but also with the quality of the child-sized tools they are using. Many hands make light work was certainly the motto on Friday. You may wonder…
There isn't much to report about progress in the garden. This report is full of rain, showers, downpour, drizzle, rain, spitz and fog. Fortunately a showery day did not deter the Yestermorrow crew who came to Katywil to hold an Earth Oven Building workshop. The stone foundation had been completed two weeks ago and Saturday was going to see building of a wood fired oven. The workshop participants had to get deep into the mud (earth) and…
Grass loves cool weather and rain. We have had both in abundance which means it was time for the first lawn mowing. The strip of lawn in front of the house looks neat, and so does the main lawn. Henry even managed to get into the Sunken Garden. I thought it was still pretty wet. The late Elsa Bakalar, friend and mentor, said one of the tricks to preparing a garden for a Garden Tour is to keep…
The appearance of the first dandelion means spring has really and truly arrived. It also means that lawn mowing will not be far behind. Because of a family obligations, and a joyous publication party for Carol Purington and Susan Todd's poetry anthology, Morning Song: Poems for New Parents, Saturday was taken up with family and friends. On Sunday we were eager to go out and play in the dirt. Some of the seedlings I have had out in…
The weekend was chilly and windy; the snow is nearly gone. There was work to do. Four potted rosebushes arrived from High Country Roses: Cardinal Richelieu, Agnes, Madame Hardy and Goldbusch. Their arrival inspired me to go out and clean out the Shed Bed which is right next to the hen house. I could not resist planting Cardinal Richelieu which will add its rosy purple hues to this assortment of pink roses. You will notice the arrangement of…
Temperatures soared above 60 degrees and this was the first weekend we could actually work outside, so let me give you a brief tour to set the scene. The snow is still melting and revealing that the winter has been kind to the rhodies. No breakage. Lots of buds. The "Limelight" hydrangea was not so lucky. The snow plow dumped a lot of our enormous snowfall at the edge of the lawn and broke more than half this…
This is an end-of- winter Monday Report. Next Monday it will be Spring. The temperature this am is 32 degrees and we are enjoying a snow flurry. Grrrrrr. But you can see there has been a lot of snow melt. Warmth is predicted for this afternoon. Although the season has been most unusual, the maple sugarers seem to be having a good run. Even though the snow was very deep with plow piles along here, the exposure is…