Recently a friend asked if I had any suggestions for creating a sound barrier in front of his house. My first idea was arborvitae. These neat symmetrical conifers are popular because they are not only handsome, but because they are low maintenance plants. They are hardy, not fussy about soil, are fairly salt tolerant and once they are established they are drought tolerant. They also tolerate some shade but need at least four hours of sun. Two easily…
Carol Purington, the prize winning poet who resides on a family farm in Colrain, has created this framable cycle of haiku that evoke the Bridge of Flowers through the seasons. She begins with the Bridge itself Arching/the Indian old river/bridge of blossoms Arc of geese/under frosted flowers/the river too runs south Summer-green/floats out from under the arches -/flower bridge blooms. The beautifully matted work of art is available at Shelburne Falls locations: Sawyer News; Boswells Books (which also…
Are you thinking about forcing spring bulbs? Most of us will never have a March forced bulb display the way Smith and Mount Holyoke colleges do, but visits to these heartening spring flower shows do make the point that we can create an early spring in our own houses. October is the month to prepare to force our favorite bulbs, daffodils, hyacinths, grape hyacinths, scillas, and amaryllis. The theory behind bulb forcing is that we have to…
It was time to create a Garden Room. Yesterday I noticed that the Christmas cactus out on the front porch had been slightly nipped by cold night time temperatures. It was time to clean out the side porch which spent the summer filled with construction materials and debris and turn it into a Garden Room. We closed the windows, and even though the temperatures never quite hit 70 degrees and substantial breezes kept our two river birches dancing,…
The little bulbs, those that bring us the earliest spring blooms include the familiar crocus, but they can also be from a host of other spring bloomers. Here are a handful of little bulbs that can help you get spring off to an early start. Possibly the least well known and earliest bulbs to bloom are the winter aconites, Eranthus heymalis. These are members of the buttercup family and the bright yellow flowers look very much like buttercups…
There are more autumnal blooms in my garden than I expected. I am trying to capture many of them for my climate record. We expect autumnal blooms like asters, but surprises are like the roses and zinnias. Asters and beesBy the time the sun came out and warmed the garden the bees came out to forage. There are still plenty of pollinators in the garden when the sun is out. Other blooming plants include coneflowers, geraniums, cardinal flower,…
The family of umbellifers can take us from Socrates poison to Miss Willmott's Ghost. Did you ever imagine that Queen Anne’s Lace, sweet cicely, golden alexanders, angelica, sea holly and poison hemlock, were all members of the same botanical family? All of these belong to the large class Apiaceae which is very large, with 300 genera and between 2500-3000 species. I will not give a lengthy lecture on taxonomy, a system used by botanists, but I will give…
Chrysanthemums are an iconic autumn flower. You can see potted mums for sale everywhere including the supermarkets where ranks of mums in shades of lemon, tangerine and plum cluster around the entrances. A friend reminded me of a quote from Maggie Smith in the 1969 movie, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, which I never saw. A student had given Miss Brodie a bouquet(?) of chrysanthemums and her response was, “Chrysanthemums. Such a serviceable flower.” Miss Brodie did…
Blues in the autumn strike a different mood from that of the traditional expectation of reds and golds of the fall. And yet, there are many blues in the autumnal palette. The very blue perennial ageratum, or mistflower have tumbled in the heat to embrace the dahlias. Some may call it a shade of lavender, but I consider my Russian sage a part of my autumnal blues. If I allow lavender Russian sage I will also allow purple…
Flower Power has been a hippy anthem but it is also a reminder that we should not underestimate the power of plants as medicine. Antibiotics have been a gift to doctors and patients for decades, but that gift has been abused. Through the overuse of antibiotics for the sick, or possibly sick, and as a preventative in livestock many bacteria strains have developed resistance to these ever more powerful and available antibiotics. In the New York Times Magazine…