June is the most important month in my garden, especially this year. The last Sunday in June is traditionally The Annual Rose Viewing, my version of Garden Open Today. I send out an open invitation to anyone who wants to stop and smell the roses, visit with friends and have a glass of lemonade and some cookies in the comfort of the Cottage Ornee. This year is different. This year our garden is part of the Franklin…
Andrea Wulf's fascinating book The Founding Gardeners provides a drawing of George Washington's Mount Vernon site plan. I wrote about this book here. Sunday's Washington Post had a story about the restoration of his gardens based on a 13 month archeological dig led by Esther White. Now visitors will be able to see the garden as George himself laid it out. Every garden is ephemeral. Every garden changes over time. Finding evidence of original planting plans revealing the…
The Holiday Weekend started for me on Friday afternoon when I visited the Heath School's Garden Day. The classes have been working before now, of course, but on Garden Day, the whole day is given over to planting, weeding, mulching - and learning. I am impressed with their energy, which I expected, but also with the quality of the child-sized tools they are using. Many hands make light work was certainly the motto on Friday. You may wonder…
One of the joys of having a garden is being able to give away plants. Last weekend a number of gardeners gave away divisions of their plants to the Bridge of Flowers Plant Sale, helping the Bridge and a lot of other gardeners. That is one way. Another way is to give plants to friends or acquaintances who are starting a garden and might not be able to tell a bean from a bachelor’s button Still another is…
I hope this photo give some sense of the amazing bloom of the Sargent crabapple. It is not 15 feet tall, but it is at least 15 feet wide and was planted about 15 years ago. It thrives in the Sunken Garden even though it is very wet in the spring. It is now in full flower - almost a single tree-sized blossom at this point. This apple tree, name unknown, produces apples but they are not the…
I thought I pinched off the buds of the roses that were delivered early this month. I guess I was wrong. "Agnes" a rugosa from High Country Roses is hardly more than a foot tall, but she has two more buds. I better pinch them off. I want this new rose on the Rose Bank to put all its strength into good roots. Yellow is a very unusual color for rugosas. I hope it will be hardy. Many…
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…
This is a close up of the old white lilacs that were on our property when we moved here in 1979. They are the earliest of all the lilacs we have and I can usually count on having them in full bloom by the 15th of May. Not this year. You can see not all the buds are open. But I only know that because keep this blog means I have pretty good records for the past three…
There isn't much to report about progress in the garden. This report is full of rain, showers, downpour, drizzle, rain, spitz and fog. Fortunately a showery day did not deter the Yestermorrow crew who came to Katywil to hold an Earth Oven Building workshop. The stone foundation had been completed two weeks ago and Saturday was going to see building of a wood fired oven. The workshop participants had to get deep into the mud (earth) and…
The garden centers are putting out their trays of blooming annuals, many of which will find their way into planters and containers of all sizes and shapes. They’ll be hung on porches, set out on decks and placed by doorways. It is hard to resist all that color and frilly form. Fortunately for us we don’t have to resist because those familiar annuals, impatiens, petunias, begonias and geraniums are inexpensive and put on a good and cheerful show…