Three perennials that get A plus grades in my garden are achillea, otherwise known as yarrow, antirrhinum or snapdragon and astilbe. My first awareness of achillea was the roadside weed, or wildflower, depending on your point of view. Roadside yarrow is usually white with the typical achillea flat topped cluster of tiny flowers. The ferny green foliage is pretty even when the plant is not in bloom. When I began to learn about perennials from my garden mentor…
Daylily season has begun here at End of the Road Farm. The Daylily Bank is going to have it's first spectacular year. My idea was to have a collection of pale and pink daylilies on the Bank. Still, I couldn't resist some of the deeper colored daylilies. Each day more are blooming and each day I am happier with this project. I thought I could count three bloomers in one photo - 'Connecticut Yankee' delphiniums, shasta daisy and…
Greenfield Garden Club members opened their gardens to the public in a fund-raising tour on July 9. Water seemed to be everywhere in those gardens, fountains, pools and streams. One of the most important water features was in Marcia Stone and Norm Hirschfeld's garden - a rain barrel. They plan to add more. The rain off their garage roof fills the 55 gallon drum almost instantly. The Greenfield Garden Club raises money to fund many school projects.
When I went to the Hawley Artisans and Garden tour a beautiful exhibit of quilts , old and new, was on display in the East Hawley Meetinghouse. Flowers are a common motif on quilts. These embroidered squares reminded me of the embroidery my mother and her sisters did when I was a young child. Even I learned to embroider. None of us made embroidered quilts, though. This charming quilt by Connie Harris shows the kind of world we…
We enjoyed our 13 year old granson's company all last week - a very busy week. There was canoeing, dinner parties, cake baking, mowing lawns, feeding chickens and all manner of End of the Road activities. One day we returned to Birch Glen Stables which is practically around the corner for his second riding lesson. The first was last year, but he had not forgotten how to groom and put on the saddle. This year the lesson was…
Need I say more?
A visitor on the Franklin Land Trust Farm and Garden Tour last weekend noted that one of the benefits of local garden tours is they allow us to see what lies hidden behind the beautiful flower beds, fields and forests: creativity, art, industry, history, and strong community. On the weekend of July 9, all of these elements will be in full view as the artisans, conservationists, and creative gardeners of Hawley, Colrain and Greenfield open their worlds to…
Sometimes I get lucky. I moved this rosy achillea to the Herb Bed in front of the house last year. It is blooming right next to a large clump of golden marjoram and makes a beautiful little plantscape. Have you had any lucky juxtapositions?
Bread is called the staff of life and bread means wheat. With our huge wheatfields in the midwest we take wheat for granted. We don't think about the possibility of the supply diminishing or about the changing nutritional value of the wheat. Eli Rogosa and the Heritage Wheat Conservancy,which she founded is collaborating with the Northeast Organic Wheat and UMass Extension to hold a Grain Conference on July 14 and 15. The first day will be held at…
For more Wordlessness click here.