Mild weather this long holiday weekend has given us time to work together to dig up, dig down, cut back and rake, all parts of putting the garden to bed. Henry helped me slightly enlarge the end of the bed around the fountain juniper, cleaning out weeds, and making room for small bulbs, miniature golden daffs, 'Diamond Ring,' Pink Sunrise' and macrocarpum 'Golden Fragrance' muscari. We will be able to see these from the dining table in the spring.…
These surprising blooms are from Bluestone Perennials, one of a mum collection I bought a couple of years ago. The rabbits got to the planting of that collection and I rescued what was left and just stuck them anywhere in the garden and forgot about them. I hope I am not the only gardener in the world who sticks in anywhere and then forgets. This spring I saw what looked like chrysanthemum foliage in an odd place, and…
In the past I have written about two kinds of peonies, the indomitable herbaceous peony that needs to be cut back in the fall, and the ancient tree peony that originated in China and blooms on woody stems that are more shrubby than tree-like. Both are extremely hardy with beautiful spring flowers in a variety of forms including the classic bomb with its very heavy blossom. Many see that the drawback of the herbaceous peonies, especially those with…
We haven't given up the fight yet. We still have blooms. Achillea 'Paprika' is actually a little more orange/red that the photo would have you believe. Either poorly named, or mislabeled. These stand in for all the pots still blooming, Million Bells, hydrangea, fuschia. Even if the skies are often grey, the morning glories never fail to remind us that there is glory every day. No. Cold weather hasn't got us yet! For more Wordlessness this Wednesday click…
Thirty years ago Diane Kurinsky and her husband Steve Gross built a house on a plot of land in Wendell that included fields and woodland. The land was a blank slate where they have managed to create a domestic landscape that welcomes and invites the visitor, luring her on to one delight after another. When I drove up I parked my car in the circular drive that curves around a large ‘bed’ that Kurinsky calls the heather garden.…
We had our first frost last night. It was not a heavy frost, but the lawn was slightly frosted and the temperature was 37 degrees at 6:30 am. It was severe enough to kill the tomatoes and squash, but nothing else was much affected. Even the basic in front of the house, where it is protected, wasn't nipped. The sun is brilliant today although probably not as hot as the Arizona sun. The frost quickly melted. These petunias…
Over the weekend I spent time weeding the Lawn Beds. There were spots that had few weeds because the plants had developed into such large clumps that the weed seeds had no place to land. Some clumps were so big that it was clear it was time to do some dividing. As a general guideline perennials need to be divided every 2 -4 years. A clump will outgrow its spot and start crowding the plants around it. Sometimes…
September gold fills my garden at this time of the year. I have whole fields of goldenrod. It's a good thing that goldenrod is not responsible for allergies. "One of the most colorful plants we see blooming in roadside ditches and gardens in late summer is goldenrod (Solidago sp.). Hay fever symptoms seem to be worse when it is in bloom so it often accused of causing hay fever. One look at goldenrod and a little logical thinking…
How long does it take for a vision to become flesh? Or in this case patios, stone walls, cool shady flower beds and a koi filled pond? For Bruce Cannon who found and bought a hilly wooded site on South Mountain in Northfield fifteen years ago, the vision was complete in only three or four years, but the building took a little longer. The house came first, set on the only bit of flat land on this steep…
Good glory in the morning on these August days. Things are looking a little fresher after the 2-1/2 inches of rain we had this past weekend. And another inch last night. At first I didn't think I had much in bloom - and then I took another look. I didn't expect the aconite would be embracing the Moth Light hydrangea - or vice versa. I bought a bag of acidanthra bulbs on a whim and them forgot where…