The Bridge of Flowers is blooming and blooming, ready for admiration, but you can see that greens are important too. Azaleas are just beginning to blossom, and Solomon's seal is still blooming. Iris season is just beginning. That's a dramatic combo with a yellow iris and orange azalea. The Bridge of Flowers loves azaleas. Surely it is clear by now that the Bridge of Flowers does not depend on a single type of flower. The bulb season is…
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…
Yesterday I had the pleasure of trekking to LaSalle's in Whately to help pick out a selection of the annuals that will be sold at the Bridge of Flowers Plant Sale on Saturday, May 14. This is the geranium that was sold out last year when I went to buy mine. This is the geranium I bought instead. It just bloomed and bloomed into the fall. Both geraniums plus scarlelet and white varieties will be available at the…
The Bridge of Flowers, an old trolley bridge, that now floriferously joins the towns of Shelburne and Buckland opened officially on April 1. On that day this year there was snow on the Bridge, but you can see we are no longer worrying about snow. At this time of the year people begin asking me about the best season to view the Bridge. I answer there is no Best Season. The Bridge has been designed to be in…
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The March-April issue of The American Gardener published by the American Horticultural Society includes a wonderful article about the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden and its curator, Peter Kukielski, by Patricia Taylor. The article explains how this famous rose garden at the New York Botanical Garden became sustainable. I interviewed Peter Kukielski in the fall of 2009 and wrote about him here. The article gives the names of rose breeders who have developed disease resistant roses, roses that need…
The sun was shining when I walked across the Bridge of Flowers last Friday. The Flower Brigade, those devoted volunteers, were raking and weeding. They were nearly done when I arrived and the Bridge looked terrific. Gone were all the wisteria seed pods, and the crocuses were in their glory. The Bridge of Flowers Committee is very busy right now planning the Annual Plant Sale, the season's big fund raiser, and a great opportunity to buy some modestly…
Butterfly gardening is becoming very popular. Schools are having their students plant butterfly gardens, and adults can find more than a dozen books devoted to gardening in a way that will attract butterflies to their landscape. Butterfly gardening could just as well go by another name, pollinator gardening. Everyone knows that bees are pollinators, but butterflies along with many other creatures like wasps and bats are important pollinators. Planting a butterfly garden helps support pollinators. Most of us…
Every year I add a few roses to my garden. The Rose Walk has expanded, the Shed Bed was added and now I have a Rose Bank. Many of the roses are shades of pink; Blanc Double de Coubert, Mount Blanc and Madame Plantier are white, but aside from the spiny Harrison's Yellow, yellow roses have been missing. I am trying to add that range of color this spring. April Moon is a soft yellow Griffith Buck hybrid…
It's time to renew memberships! What are you a member of? My most local membership is in the New England Wildflower Society because their propagation operation and nursery are so close by. An individual membership is only $50, for which you get free admission to the famous Garden in the Woods in Framingham, discounts on workshops and lectures, discounts at Nasami Farm and in the Gift Shop. NEWFS also participates in a Reciprocal Admissions Program that will give you free…