Emily Dickinson at the NYBG

  • Post published:05/22/2010
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A little Madness in the Spring Is wholesome even for the King, But God be with the Clown-- Who ponders this tremendous scene-- This whole Experiment in Green-- As if it were his own! Emily Dickinson Spring madness was in the air when I trekked to the New York Botanical Garden for the special exhibit Emily Dickinson’s Garden: Poetry in Flowers. Two rooms of the stunning Enid E. Haupt Conservatory were given over to interpretations of the gardens…

Self Seeded Salad

  • Post published:05/21/2010
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The harvest has begun, but with the help of Mother Nature. Last night we had our first garden fresh salad, mostly with these self-seeded lettuces in the vegetable garden. The spinach in the Herb Bed needs thinning (and weeding) and I added the thinnings to the salad. The Red Sails lettuce directly seeded in the new Front Garden is also ready to be thinned. All of a sudden it is really taking off. I love being able to…

Rain Drenched Pink

  • Post published:05/20/2010
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This  is the day I wait for every year - the first tree peony blossoms. I bought this one because of the name which translates as Guan Yin's face. Guan Yin is the goddess of compassion and I am sure her face is as beautiful as this blossom. Tree peony flowers look fragile, but the plants are extremely hardy. I vaguely remember buying a bag of pink tulip bulbs last fall, and then sticking them in any old…

How to Plant a Shrub

  • Post published:05/19/2010
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In the olden days planting wisdom said you needed a $5 hole for a fifty cent plant.  Inflation is everywhere. Now when I guy my $35 Proven Winners Pinky Winky hydrangea I know I need at least a $50 hole. This was a lesson I gave my daughter last weekend when I learned she was much given to taking out a shovelful of soil, sticking a plant in and considering the job done.  My $50 hole is 24…

Frost Damage Discovered

  • Post published:05/18/2010
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When we were at Betsy's house yesterday we looked at some shrubs that we all thought were dead. The leaves were twisted, curled and brown. We were having trouble identifying what the shrubs were until we found one that had a few undamaged leaves. Oh yes, Betsy said. Magnolias.  Well, the shrubs aren't dead, they were hit with frost, and with luck they will recover. At our house we realized that the kiwi on the shed was also…

Gardening There – and Here

  • Post published:05/17/2010
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If there is anything more enjoyable than an afternoon working in one's own garden, it is spending an afternoon working with a daughter in her garden.  Yesterday we visited Betsy for a garden consultation, nursery shopping and planting day. Betsy has done some landscaping around her house which is built on sand that hides many many stones. In fact the house is directly across the road from a granite quarry whose boulders form a major element of the…

A Celebratory Bloom Day

  • Post published:05/15/2010
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These late daffodils have just started to bloom, but all the others are pretty well done.  And I am celebrating having more than bulbs to declare on this Bloom Day. I do still have a few grape hyacinths blooming, as well. Barren strawberry, Waldsteinia, is one of my successes. I bought this native groundcover at Nasami Farm spring 2009 and it is spreading nicely. They did so well I bought more in the fall. This is part of…

A Wonder – and a Warning

I got a call from Edwin Graves who said I had to come and see the wisteria on his rental property in Greenfield. He told me it had climbed into two cherry trees, but he didn't tell me those two trees were 60 feet tall, and that the wisteria climbed into the very top reaches. The Graves bought this Greenfield house for her parents back in about 1981. Since they moved out in 1989 the house has been…

I Love The City!

  • Post published:05/13/2010
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While it is true that I visited New York City to explore parks like the one above,  and the New York Botanic Garden, I saw things I hadn't expected. I didn't know that the park that runs along the Hudson River with all its plantings and seating included a temple. At least it might be a temple but there is something chess - like about this arrangement as well. Odd and mysterious, although the gentlemen there eating?  meeting?…

Local Lunch at The Academy

  • Post published:05/12/2010
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Jeannie Bartlett, a senior at The Academy in Charlemont, has many interests including “farms, food, the environment, health and community” which she put together in a delicious way. Local Lunches, her Independent Senior Project, fed Academy students a monthly lunch composed of local ingredients all year. Todd Sumner, Academy Headmaster, explained “Senior projects are intended to extend a student’s classroom learning to provide service, and to apply and implement their learning. Students have to be responsible for a…