Beauty arrives in amazing places.

I did not expect to find a hellebore flower in the snow. This narrow bed has been covered with snow, which is just now melting away, and it will probably be covered with snow again this winter. I have seen the foliage, but I never expected to find a blossom opening its flowers. (more…)

You might think we had a snow storm but it has been so mild that the snow is melting - melting - melting. The lakes spill over into the rivers. I enjoy watching the rivers and streams as  they come and go. The land is always changing, and always bringing something to see, to enjoy, to watch it change.

The snows have come lightly this year.  It is silent and cold, but a joy to see. Winter Trees BY WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS All the complicated details of the attiring and the disattiring are completed! A liquid moon moves gently among the long branches. Thus having prepared their buds against a sure winter the wise trees stand sleeping in the cold.

Here we are in the gray of winter and I am preparing to grow some vegetables in my small office room. In the past I have grown flower plants under lights in the basement, but this is a different plan. I don’t have a lot of light or room, but I am  going to give a plant or two a try. How to Garden & Grow Your Food Year Round gives a lot  of good information. (more…)

Jack Mingo has written a delightful – and useful – book about being a beekeeper.  Mingo is a beekeeper himself and he knows “All the Buzz about Being Resilient, Collaborative, Industrious, Generous, and Sweet – Straight from the Hive.” The book is arranged in short pages and mentions the hundreds of native bees which live in different places  but it concentrates on honeybees. (more…)

The New Pie  (Clarkson Potter $26.99) has nothing to do with the garden, except that we gardeners are always pleased to have a sweet pie and a cup of tea in the afternoon. Although, some of us may have apple trees or other fruits in our gardens.   This New Pie provides Modern Techniques for the Classic American Dessert. (more…)

We did not expect that our joyous Christmas days would give us rain, and more rain. (more…)

When we put up our tree and hang up the ornaments, I am carried back to the reasons we put those ornaments on the tree.  My mother loved putting up her ornaments, and was always adding more. She had so many more that she gave ornaments to me and my brothers – and she could buy more. I love this Red, White and Blue ornament that my mother, and then I, have been hanging the red, white and blue since 1940!  It is hanging in front of one of the many birds that I have hung on the tree over the years. (more…)

The year after we planted our first river birch I planted a small container with European ginger. This is not the knotty kind of ginger that you will find at the grocery store. Its proper name is Asarum europaeum.  They are commonly referred to as wild gingers (they are not culinary gingers) but are so-called because their rhizomes have a similar spicy scent. It has not increased rapidly under the river birch, but it spreads nicely every year.  It is happy to spend its life in  the shade. (more…)