The hellstrip has been ready for Bloom Day for a while. Astilbe is ready to finish, but the Achillea, yarrow, coneflowers and daylilies have just begun their bloom days. Daylilies are the major stars right now. The week of days in the high 90s have not bothered the daylilies one bit. Daylilies are used to heat, and dryness. I do have a list of my daylilies but I never seem to get the name and the flower attached…
You never expect your perennials to proliferate when you are a young gardener You carefully plant your first perennial bee balm or Siberian iris or coral bells. You set out your plants neatly and sigh with accomplishment and pleasure expecting that these perennials will look just as they do that day forever. After caring for flower gardens for the past 40 years you would think I had outgrown this daydream. But, alas, as I evaluate my Greenfield garden,…
The garden bloggers Austin Garden Tour took us to a variety of gardens but when you pull up to a purple and pink house, you know you have come to a remarkable and outrageous garden. Lucinda Hutson named her house La Casita Moradita, or the little purple house, and it is filled with many references to lands south of the border. The Casita sits on a small urban lot that is probably a little smaller than my own…
I was so happy when my garden won a Bee Spaces Pollinator Award given by the Franklin County Beekeepers Association and the Second Congregational Church, and presented by Representative Stephen Kulik. The awards are intended to promote gardens that will feed and support many of our important pollinators. I thought I would make a list of the most important pollinator plants in my award winning garden. It might help you get more pollinators in your garden The Foam…
It’s June and I am looking forward to the Hawley Garden Tour on June 30. Kim Fitzroy will host just one of the gardens on this special tour. She set her garden at the base of a sunny hill but she created “her own bit of heaven” in the shade. Fitzroy began planting her garden about 15 years ago. Except for two old birches there were no trees, but now a thornless honey locust, four sumacs, a magnolia,…
In 1975 Diane Ott Whealy and Kent Whealy accepted seeds of her grandfather’s morning glory, appropriately named “Grandpa Ott’s” morning glory, and “German Pink” tomato seeds. Thus the Seed Savers Exchange was begun. It was Diane and Kent’s intention to form a network of gardeners who would take these seeds, and thousands of others, sharing them and keeping them growing. The Seed Savers Exchange began in Missouri, but the Heritage Farm and Orchard now exists on 890 acres…
When we returned from our trip to Texas we found that all of a sudden the garden had bloomed. The shy primroses were glowing, there were elegant white bloodroots, dainty yellow Fairy Bells, and sunny wood poppies lighting up the shade. The winter had been long and now the beginning of a season filled with blooms and fragrance had arrived. In The Garden in Every Sense and Season by Tovah Martin sings about the perfumes in a spring…
I nearly forgot Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, so I raced out in the dawn to take photos (not very good ones) of what is blooming in the drizzle. Thomas Affleck is a rose we grew for many years in Heath, and one of the first we planted in Greenfield. It is doing very well indeed. No real fragrance though. At least I think this is Polar Express. I'll have to wait till the other roses are blooming to…
This past Saturday Greenfield celebrated the 10th Annual Bee Fest at the 250 year old Second Congregational Church. The seventh minister of the church in the mid-19800s was Lorenzo Langstroth who, in his spare time, invented the modern moveable frame bee hive. The Bee Fest provides the occasion to remember and celebrate Langstroth and the way he changed bee keeping. There were lots of outdoor activities for the children who were learning about bees, most especially not to…
Recently Amy Donovan, Program Director of the Franklin County Solid Waste Management District (FCSWMD), invited me to a Compost Tour at the Academy of Early Learning where three, four and five year old children begin their academic studies. The Compost Tour began with Donovan’s power point presentation about recycling. I was impressed by the children’s attentive engagement. The children were familiar with the idea of recycling. They were already using the recycling system Donovan had set up in…