Flashing Flowers

  • Post published:04/05/2011
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During our visit to Missouri City Anthony, my 14 year old grandson, volunteered to do a Flash project for my blog. He took four of the flower photos I took during the Garden Conservancy's Open Days Tour and at Cindy's garden in Katy and turned them into a twirling delight. You can see each photo 'full size' by clicking on the thumbnails at the bottom.  If only he lived closer we could collaborate more often. [swfobj src="http://www.commonweeder.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Grannys-Picture-Viewer1.swf" align="left"…

Native Buzz!

  • Post published:04/03/2011
  • Post comments:4 Comments

Butterfly gardening is becoming very popular. Schools are having their students plant butterfly gardens, and adults can find more than a dozen books devoted to gardening in a way that will attract butterflies to their landscape. Butterfly gardening could just as well go by another name, pollinator gardening.  Everyone knows that bees are pollinators, but butterflies along with many other creatures like wasps and bats are important pollinators. Planting a butterfly garden helps support pollinators. Most of us…

April Fool!

  • Post published:04/01/2011
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We left sunny Houston yesterday at noon, and got into sunny Nashville, but by the time we arrived in Hartford at 6:30 the rain was falling. Our son drove us to Greenfield where our car waited for us at his house. Quick! A few groceries! Quick up the hill. The snow is falling. And still falling this morning. My plan was to plant spinach today, but I guess that will not happen. The only flowers in my view…

The Corner in Katy

Cindy MCOK, lives in Katy which is is not far from Missouri City where my daughter lives. When I told Cindy we were coming to Texas she invited us, my husband, daughter and me, to visit her garden. I thought it would be fun to feature Cindy's garden on Three for Thursday which she started.  When we first made plans she said she thought the poppies would be in bloom. And they were!  We were still a distance…

More Than Plants

  • Post published:03/29/2011
  • Post comments:3 Comments

Our trip to Texas had many benefits. One of the first was meeting interesting people on the train ride down. Austrailian Tamma was on her  first trip trip to the United States, although she has travelled to many other countries over the years. She was our across-the-hall neighbor on the train and we got to spend lots of time visiting - and sharing meals. She said she is trying to 'eat American' but that it was hard. Americans…

We’re in Texas

  • Post published:03/28/2011
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I got to Houston just in time for the Garden Conservancy's Open Garden Days.  My daughter Kate (R),  Melissa the Houston Garden Girl (center) and I set off to see many beautiful gardens surrounding beautiful houses in some of the historic neighborhoods in the city. I can't show you all 500 photos I took, but I want to give you just a taste of what we saw.  More will show up over time. It is azalea season in…

Ruth Parnell and the Natives

  • Post published:03/26/2011
  • Post comments:2 Comments

“When you have such a huge list of native plants, [as we do in New England] you don’t need exotics,” Ruth Parnall said as she handed me pages of native grasses, wetland wildflowers, ornamental shrubs, vines and trees. Then she handed me a list of books that would give me even more names of natives. Her comment reminded me of the enormous traffic of our native plants to England in the 1700s. John Bartram, often considered the first…

My Logo

  • Post published:03/25/2011
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When I began my blog, slightly more than three years ago, I had just finished reading The Uncommon Reader, a delightful short comic novel by Alan Bennett.  I am a reader and understood the reference to Virginia Woolf's Common Reader essays so the phrase 'common reader' was whirling around in my brain  when I thought of that most common of weeds - the dandelion.  I thought the dandelion was a perfect flower to refer to me; I am…

Saint Gertrude of Nivelles

I wish I had known about Saint Gertrude of Nivelles in Belgium (626-659) last week. It is National Women's History Month and Saint Gertrude with her cats could have shared the stage with St. Patrick and his snakes on March 17. At the age of 10 Gertrude stated she would have no other bridegroom but Christ. In 639, after her father died, her mother established a double monastery, one for men and one for women at Nivelles.  She…