Art in the garden. Art has had a place in the garden for centuries. Archeologists found pools, fountains and statuary in the ancient gardens of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Nowadays it would be hard to find any public garden or park that does not include art. We home gardeners have also found that we desire art in our gardens. Water is considered by many to be the most basic artistic element. By definition the Chinese garden includes water and…
Attractive and colorful seed packets are blooming in garden centers. The constant promise of seeds is that they will germinate and grow providing us with healthy foods, zesty herbs and colorful flowers. Some companies like Burpee have been around for over 100 years. Others are newer. Stories about beginnings are always fascinating and today I have stories about three newer seed companies. When we lived in Maine in 1974-5 I learned about Johnny’s Selected Seeds when I was…
The new year, 2017, has dawned. The blank pages of the calendar and the buried garden await the challenges and pleasures of the new year. All best wishes to all.
For me most holiday gifts for the gardener fall into two main categories, functional and informational. Functional gifts include the necessary tools a gardener needs. We all start out with fairly inexpensive tools, partly because as a beginning gardener we don’t really know how hard a tool will have to work. As we grow as a gardener we come to recognize sturdiness and good quality and buy, or are given, better tools. I was wandering through the…
It was on a snowy December 6 in 2007, the feast of St. Nicholas, that I inaugurated my Commonweeder blog. On this anniversary I'm taking a look at the last nine years, on the blog, in the garden, and in my life. That first post gave a hint that I was not only a gardener but a reader. I mentioned Eleanor Perenyi's wonderful book Green Thoughts, and a chapter that talked about the house and garden that was…
The development of Wildside Cottage and Gardens surprised Sue Bridge. She spent an active life learning and working. She earned a Masters degree in Russian and Middle Eastern studies, learned about different worlds while hitchhiking to Morocco, worked for the Christian Science Monitor, and learned how to gather information and pass it on through print and electronic media. She also supported environmental causes because of her belief that future generations would face great challenges. Ten years ago she…
The little bulbs, those that bring us the earliest spring blooms include the familiar crocus, but they can also be from a host of other spring bloomers. Here are a handful of little bulbs that can help you get spring off to an early start. Possibly the least well known and earliest bulbs to bloom are the winter aconites, Eranthus heymalis. These are members of the buttercup family and the bright yellow flowers look very much like buttercups…
Once Labor Day is past it is time for the year’s second planting season to begin. Many garden centers and nurseries will be putting potted plants on sale. Many friends will realize they have to move plants and will have divisions to pass along. Each gardener may have her own plants to divide, to share or to move to a new location in the garden. We gardeners are lucky. We get a second chance every fall to act…
I haven't posted on Garden Blogger's Bloom Day all summer so I wanted to make as full a record as I could as the season comes to a close. This is my catalog for September. I thank Carol over at May Dreams Gardens for hosting this wonderful series. To see what else is blooming over our great land click here.
The view from the window at the end of July shows the expansion two of the Lawn Beds. We wanted to plant Calycanthus in the bed on the left along with two geums , and the low growing sumac on the right. At the end of August, with only the merest rain shower, the only change, besides the increasing drying of leaves on the horse chestnut, is an attempt to refine the borders and do a little more…