It is time to begin spring chores. But exactly how do we know when spring is beginning? A tough question. The only sure answer is that it did not begin on March 20 this year when the temperature was 16 degrees at 7 in the morning and remained cold and cloudy all day. It was a very different story last year when the snowdrops were in full bloom and my first temperature record was 54 degrees with sun.…
Where do the plants in our garden come from? How did plants get from the heights of the Himalayan mountains, or the Appalachian mountains, to our gardens? It would be hard to count the number of plants in our gardens that were first seen by the intrepid explorers of the last three centuries. John Bartram (1699-1777) of Philadelphia was possibly the first American botanist and plant hunter. Bartram was a farmer with little formal education, but he was…
Douglas Tallamy, author of Bringing Nature Home: How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in our Gardens, one of the best books ever written on how the food web works in our gardens, is coming to our part of the world. He will be the keynote speaker at the Annual Western Massachusetts Master Gardeners Association Spring Symposium scheduled for Saturday, March 16 at Frontier Regional High School in South Deerfield. In his book Tallamy powerfully and engagingly explains how important…
Very pretty hydrangea blossom. But I don't think it will count on Bloom Day.
New England is famous for being a stony place. The stone walls that line our roads are a testament to the stones that farmers have been pulling out of their fields for centuries. We gardeners complain about constantly hitting stone as we dig in our gardens. On the other hand, most of us admire the beauty of stone patios and walkways, and dry laid stone walls built by stone masons. Gary Warner, of Goshen Stone Quarry, has been…
Mel Bartholomew came bursting on the garden scene over 30 years ago with his technique of Square Foot Gardening. I have visited many gardens that use his raised bed, grid organized system out here in the country, and I have seen it in front yards when we have visited our son in Cambridge. This year Bartholomew has come out with the Square Foot Gardening Answer Book (Cool Springs Press $16.99) that he says was inspired by the questions…
For the month of December I am selling my book, The Roses at the End of the Road for $12 with no shipping costs. All ordering information is here. The book is filled with characters and our adventures here at the end of the road. To give you a taste, the Rachel's Rose chapter follows below. There is a rose in my garden named Rachel. One summer Rachel Burrington Sumner, one of Heath’s grand dames, who knew…
In the spring I attended a hypertufa trough building workshop and planted two it with succulents I bought at a local garden shop. My two troughs lived happily outside on the welcoming platform. When our first hard frost was threatened I brought my troughs inside and they are now living on a broad southern windowsill in our unheated Great Room. I wasn't worried about the hardiness of the succulents, only the troughs. I haven't paid too much attention…
You may ask what this wheel suspended over a ditch has to do with plants. Well, it actually has to do with a library book about plants. I set off for the dump and the library and then realized I had my trash but not the library book Bulbs by Anna Pavord. While turning around I managed to hang the car up on a bank and my wheel was suspended which meant I couldn't go back, and I…
Today is Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, and once again I am surprised at how much is still blooming in the garden. I am so glad to have this ongoing Bloom record. Echinacea and Russian Sage are in full bloom, as is the pink phlox just peeking in. I have a coupe of huge blooming clumps but no good photograph. The September sun is shining brilliantly on the garden and I am enjoying it on these cooler, breezy days. I…