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-…
Bill Benner, veterinarian, birder, and butterfly gardener, is a man with many strings to his bow, but they all play tunes of the natural world and its fragility. He will be talking about the natural world, climate change and the impact it has on our own part of Massachusetts at GreenfieldCommunity College’s Senior Symposium on Tuesday, March 10 from 2-4 pm. As a young man Benner attended CornellUniversity because of their ornithology lab. “I just wanted to study…
There are many shades of white in this world. Snow white is what I have been looking at for three frigid months now, but I dream of shades of white for spring and summer. First come the snowdrops - as white as snow. A very welcome white. Rhododendrons bloom towards the end of May, but 'Boule de Neige' (Snowball) has a memory of the white winter. Somehow this pristine white seems prettier than the snow. High summer and…
The view from the bedroom window by February 5 showed that another 25 inches of snow had fallen since February 1. Cold and often windy with just below zero temperatures on a few nights. Another 18 inches of snow on February 9, but sun on the 10th. Occasional snow showers over the rest of February and continuing frigid temperatures. Minus 12 on February 16 at 7 am. Often windy with wind chill advisories common. You can see the…
There are peas that need to be shelled, peas that only need to be snapped, peas named snow, and sweet peas that can be smelled. There are pea plants that are small, and many that are tall. There is a pea for every taste, and every eye and nose. Peas are one of the first vegetables that can be planted in the spring. What more could one ask of a humble legume? All peas prefer a fairly neutral…
On Sunday I drove down to Northampton and the annual Orchid Show put on by the Amherst Orchid Society. I do not grow orchids because I always think they require a greenhouse. However, anyone who has ever received a phaleanopsis orchid as a gift knows that it will live happily on a bright, but not sunny, windowsill. I walked through the orchid show with Bill Benner, a member of the Amherst Orchid Society, who has about 100 orchid…
With all the bad weather I’ve been happy to sit by the woodstove and read two new books from St. Lynn’s Press. Garden-pedia: An A to Z Guide to Gardening Terms by Paula Bennett and Maria Zampini ($16.95 paperback) is an excellent book for the novice gardener. There are so many terms that arise even in catalogs and other places that can confuse and confound. Writers and speakers may be trying to write or speak plainly, but sometimes…