I don't pay enough attention to this orchid cactus, even though it makes its presence felt in the house, to remember when it blooms, but the two huge scarlet flowers that opened yesterday were quite a surprise. This epiphyllum lives on an old black kitchen step stool so that the 3+ foot long drooping stems have sufficient room. The stool is near a big south window and gets lots of light. Our house just naturally gives it the…
Worms alive! “I used to say that one ton of worms could eat one ton of garbage. I was always thinking big like that. Then I found out that Seattle had distributed four thousand worm bins. I did some figuring and realized that worked out to ten tons of garbage going into worm bins. That’s when I realized—it’s happening! It just isn’t happening the way I originally thought it would.” Mary Apelhof, author of Worms Eat My…
L is for lilies, liatris, lilacs and lemon balm and lettuce.One of the joys of an herb garden is the way perennial herbs appear so very early in the spring.Lemon balm, Melissa officinalis, has beautiful crinkled bright green leaves and the delicious sweet fragrance of lemons. It is hardy; a strong grower that allows me to give divisions to anyone who admires it in the garden.I love having lemon balm in the garden for the simple pleasure of…
Today I have a guest posting from my friend Peter Beck, who is less than devoted to making a complex garden, but who appreciates and encourages gardeners enthusiastically. Six years ago neighbors Mary Kay and Earl Pope, tired of their annual carting of several enormous and weighty agapanthus indoors, gave three plants to us. The plants were indeed enormous and weighty, and they only grew larger and heavier. Eventually we transplanted the agapanthus into five pots. The size…
This morning I am beginning my Monday Record - noting as completely as I can what is doing in the garden. The snow is nearly gone everywhere, except in the Sunken Garden. The weedy grass is just beginning to green up. I was tempted by a 6 pack of lettuce seedlings a couple of weeks ago when the weather was very mild. On March 31 I could wait no longer and set them out in the herb bed…
Driving around Heath the horrendous damage caused to trees by the historic December ice storm is revealed. The labor it will take to clean up peoples' gardens is breathtaking. One neighbor has beautiful old trees surrounding his house and the devastation is astounding. But his witch hazel, Hamamelis 'Arnold's Promise', is blooming, a glorious harbinger of better days to come. Witch hazel is consisdered a winter blooming shrub, flowering as it does so early in the spring. Even…
Little bulbs are one of the first blooms to show their bright faces in the spring, but as the season progresses it is flowering shrubs and trees that can make an impact. Last year I admired a splash of brilliant yellow in a neighbor’s garden. I was completely puzzled because it was too early for forsythia, but what else could be seen at the back of a big country garden from the road while whizzing past?…
When You Open a Bookby Rory Matthews (age 12)When you open a bookA journey beginsIn which many people can takeWhether they read poetry or novelsEither is fine.Both take you to lands unknownFrom fiction to sci-fiOr drama to actionMaybe Moby Dick or Swiss Family RobinsonOr even a Wrinkle in Time.From one galaxy to anotherOr on a big wooden shipWith mast and allAll you have to doIs open a bookand each page is a journey for you.My grandson Rory has…
Promises of glory at Smith College Bulb Show Mary McClintock, with her Root for Your Favorite Root project, has made me think a lot more about the root vegetables I plant than usual. I’ve also been thinking about root crops in general because many of them are good keepers. They can be stored in the fall without a lot of laborious processing if you have a cool cellar, or can provide the necessary root…
After my time away from home, tending my daughter with her broken ankle and her two sons, I have come back home to find the first real signs of spring. The herb bed next to the piazza in front of the house faces south and is very protected. It doesn't look like much from a distance, but if you get up close . . . Here is autumn crocus sending up leaves as early as spring crocus, but…