My new low maintenance, pollinator garden is full of fragrant flowers that bloom over the course of the season. I confess I did not choose these flowers on purpose. However I am really happy that so many fragrant plants have additional benefits. My fragrant flowers require little care and welcome pollinators. Some fragrances, like lilac, take me back to my early childhood on a Vermont farm. When we moved to Heath in 1979 there were already old fragrant…
There was a time when I didn't know about random acts of kindness. Have you ever gone through a toll booth and been told your toll was already paid by the car ahead of you? Or had a dish of jello sent to your table at a highway diner by the smiling waitress who told you it was courtesy of the man who just left? I have. My response was to laugh and immediately pay the toll for…
Who are the pollinators and why are they important? We all know that many plants need to be pollinated to make seed, and the fruits and vegetables that protect the seeds inside. Pollen is the powdery stuff inside a flower blossom. Sometimes it is not very noticeable. On the other hand flowers like lilies and sunflowers are so laden with pollen that a bouquet of those flowers will shed golden pollen all over the table. Pollen grains are…
I did not read Anne of Green Gables until I saw the recent TV production. I knew nothing of the red haired girl with freckles who talked a mile a minute. I didn’t know about her trip from an awful asylum to “the Island, the bloomiest place. . . .I used to imagine I was living here, but I never really expected I would. It’s delightful when your imaginations come true, isn’t it?” The TV program turned out…
There are three ways to achieve flowering plants in your house during the winter. First, you can think ahead and order bulbs for forcing. Paperwhites are the old standby, but you can force other daffodils, and there are many cultivars to provide you with a variety of form and color. In the early fall you will find a host of different daffodil bulbs at your local garden center or you can go online. By the same token you…
Who needs Latin in this modern, high-tech age? Gardeners do! They need to know Rose of Sharon, Hibiscus syriaca is not a rose which is named Rosa. Rose of Sharon could be a hibiscus. Which rose do you want? Of course, if you want a hibiscus, the Rose of Sharon is a great perennial choice. Knowing your Latin will help you get the rose you want and not a Lenten rose, Helleborus orientalis or a rock rose, Cistus…
Trees have been growing on our planet for about 390 million years, in what is called the Middle-Late Devonian period. Those trees did not look much like the trees in our woods today, but they did meet a definition that paleontologists use describing a tree as a plant with a single stem that can attain larger heights because they have specialized cells. Trees were small back then. Nowadays we know how big the family of trees has become,…
If we do not think winter gardens are very interesting, we need to change our view. We can choose trees and shrubs that will create winter interest.
New Year’s celebrations have been with us for a very long time. The ancients have been paying attention to the movement of the sun, moon and stars for at least four thousand years. They were aware of the equinoxes when the length of day and night were equal. The Babylonians celebrated the beginning of the year with a great religious festival in late March, on the day of the vernal equinox. Not all countries or regions of the…
Today, January 1, 2019 is mild and cloudy, but our year of 2018 began with a snowstorm. Fortunately I have winter interest in the garden with my winterberries and beautiful exfoliating bark on the river birches. February was a month for reading and learning. George Washington Carver helped farmers turn to peanuts, and the world benefits today with Plumpy'nut. It was also a month of learning about trees, caterpillars and butterflies and their importance to our environment. It…