The view from the bedroom window shows a world iced with crystal and shrouded in mist. I love taking photos of this yellow birch in the west field. So mysterious shrouded in fog. I didn't worry about all the perennials buried under three feet of snow all during the frigid month of February, but ice on the weeping cherry is definitely a worry. I wonder how the wisteria feels about all the ice. Probably not happy.
The Little Bubs are the earliest to bloom. This collection is crocus and Glory-of-the-Snow, otherwise know as Chionodoxa will be blooming on the Bridge of Flowers any minute. I have Glory-of-the-Snow down by the vegetable garden, still covered by snow. Crocus and Chionodoxa and deer and rodent resistant, and both will increase over time. Most of my snowdrops are also still under the snow, but temperatures got to 50 degrees today, so I think they will emerge from…
For years putting water in the garden was a problem for me. Beverley Nichols was one of my favorite authors when I was younger and spent a lot of time reading English garden books. He is wonderfully witty (the British are never merely funny) and I can certainly identify with many of his adventures with plants, and other gardeners. I did take against one thing he said with great energy which was that a good garden required water.…
February ended cold, and March began cold. 10 degrees at 7 am on March 2. The fountain juniper is almost completely covered. More snow yesterday, but warmer temperatures - over freezing. Temperatures are staying at freezing or below - but the fountain juniper begins to reveal itself. The only place to find color is at the Smith College Spring Bulb show. More sun, but still freezing temperatures. And yet melting - or subliming - continues. "Sublime verb -…
Herbs. Some people like herb gardens because they are so practical, others like the romance of herbs. All new herb gardeners will find that they are about the easiest gardens to tend. Herbs are not fussy plants. Lisa Baker Morgan and Ann McCormick belong to the practical school. Their book Homegrown Herb Garden: A Guide to Growing and Culinary Uses (Quarry Books $24.99) gives information about growing 15 flavorful herbs, and then delicious recipes using each of the…
Water is a precious resource. It is also a source of beauty in our gardens. We cannot all have water like this in our garden, but . . . we can have a circular fountain, and and we can have fountain and grotto pool in our back yard jungle, and and we can have a simple urn fountain, but we will probably never have a frogs with turtles fountain like this one in Seattle, Washington. What kind of…
Peter Kukielski knows how to grow roses without chemicals and I have learned a little about disease resistant roses over the past 30 years. One thing I love about our Annual Rose Viewing is the chance to tell visitors that you do not need an arsenal of chemicals to grow healthy, beautiful roses. I did not always know this. My rose education began when we moved to Heath in 1979. In my admiration for Katherine White, wife…
The day has been warmer, briefly, but windy and with an icy shower. I refused to think about it. I am thinking about Roses. I am thinking about Rachel's Rose which I wrote about here. Rachel's Rose is an old trouble-free farmhouse rose, name forever lost, but there are now new trouble-free roses available with a long season of bloom Peter Kukielski, former curator of the NYBG Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden, is the man to tell you about…
Creating Your Own Eden is the name of this year’s fact and delight loaded Western Massachusetts Master Gardener Spring Symposium on Saturday, March 21 at Frontier Regional High School in South Deerfield. I can imagine a garden Eden where all the trees welcome insects to take a modest banquet from their leaves, where birds eat some of those insects, where weeds and flowers grow to provide food for caterpillars, some of which also get eaten, and where butterflies…
The theme of the Smith College Bulb Show is Giverny, Monet's famous French garden. Today I was satisfied to be in the Lyman Plant House in Northampton and dream of Giverny. A better close up of Giverny colors. A different view of Room One. An overview of Room Two. Note the water lily pillars and backdrops. The scent of spring in every room. The Smith College Bulb Show at Lyman Plant House will continue daily, from 10-…