Q is for the Quietness Rose, one of Griffith Buck's best hybrid roses. There is hardly any more to say after noting that this is a carefree rose, fragrant and beautiful. All you need to do is cut it back in the early spring because it blooms on new wood. The Quietness rose is one of the most admired roses on the Rose Walk. This is a rose for people who say they could never grow roses because…
P is for the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden at the New York Botanical Garden. I last visited this garden in November of 2009 when there was still plenty of bloom on view although you wouldn't know it from this photo of the view from the entry to the Gazebo where Awakening roses twine around the beautiful iron framework. I had gone to meet Peter Kukielski, self-taught rosarian, and the then curator of the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden,…
O is for Organizations. We gardeners have all sorts of enthusiasms, about plants, about conservations, and about education. There are many Organizations that support those enthusiasms. I belong to the Massaachusetts Horticultural Society which is headquartered in Wellesley. There Mass Hort has a library, classrooms, and wonderful gardens from the Italianate Garden to the delightful Weezies Garden for Children. Founded in 1829 this organization isty is "dedicated to encouraging the science and practice of horticulture and developing the…
N is for Nasami Farm, the Native plant nursery of the New England Wildflower Society. Founded in 1900 the New England Wildflower Society is one of the oldest conservation organizations in the country. "The mission of New England Wild Flower Society is to conserve and promote the region’s native plants to ensure healthy, biologically diverse landscapes." The Society owns and oeperates the beautiful Garden in t he Woods in Framingham, Massachusetts which features the largest landscape of native…
G is for Garden Projects for Kids: 101 ways to get kids outside, dirty, and having fun by Whitney Cohen and John Fisher of LIfe Lab in Santa Cruz, California. Surely, my regular readers would not expect me to get through a whole month of posts without including a book or two. And this book from Timber Press is a doozy. Garden Project for Kids is not only about growing veggies, but about other designing the garden so…
E is for Echinacea, possibly the most used medicinal herb/flower in the world. Recently the Daily Mail in England did an article on the efficacy of echinacea as a cold remedy. And the University of Maryland has a lot of information about the medicinal properties of echinacea here But even if you are not interesting in growing echinacea, otherwise known as coneflower , is a wonderful plant for the perennial border. For years I only knew it in…
B has to be for Bee Balm because a post I did about Bee Balm in 2009 is one of the most popular posts I ever did. I don't know quite why. Maybe I did some SEO magic without knowing? Maybe because ABC Wednesday still remains very popular, running through the alphabet for six years now? In any event, bee balm, more properly known as Monarda didyma, is an American native that has it's own place in…
A is for Apple and I found 36 varieties of Apples with names that begin with A right here. I've known about the Arkansas Black and the Arlington Pippin but that was the end of it for me. But there is also the Ambrosia apple, a modern Canadian apple similar to the Golden Pelicious, the American Summer Pearmain Apple, very juicy, the Autumn Gold apple, better than Golden Delicious and obvously, many many more! I became interested in old apple…
Dr. Douglas Tallamy, author of Bringing Nature Home: How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens, was the keynote speaker at the Western Massachusetts Master Gardeners Spring Symposium last week. His talk focused on the need for more insects to make our gardens – and the world – healthier and more ecologically balanced. “A mere 1 % [of all insects] interact with humans in negative ways. The other 99 % pollinate plants, return the nutrients tied up in…
With Ready, Set, Grow! Timber Press is giving away books, lots of books, and a Moleskine journal to record your success as you put all the inspiration and advice to work in your garden for the next three months. Each month, March, April and May they will be giving a library of books away in a lottery. All you have to do is click here and enter. Whether you win the library or not, by checking this website…