On this sunny, cool (72 degrees) but breezy, Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, bloom is beginning to arrive. These stocks are in the Herb Bed right in front of the house, where there is also an array of potted geraniums, petunias and such. They are not doing terribly well because the weather remains so cool. Calsap will stand in for all the plants in the corner that have gone by, the 2 tree peonies, as well as Boule de…
Time for the Forbes Library Garden Tour June 14 10 am - 3 pm. The time comes for many of us gardeners when we think we cannot carry on with our gardens, or houses, as they are. We are older, the children have gone, and we are not quite so energetic or willing to toil for hours in the summer sun over our weeds and slugs. The time comes to think about a smaller house and a smaller…
Cabbage, caulifower and other crucifers seem to attract cutworms. There are thousands of varieties of cutworms that can overwinter in the garden for two years before metamorphizing into a moth. They are tiny, hard to see and often live just below the surface of the soil where they are invisible until you walk out in the morning to see that your cabbage seedlings are either wilting (because they are not yet thoroughly cut through) or lying in a…
Dear Friend and Gardener - I am going to have to go back a bit to give you the history of the 60 x 40 fenced Potager to explain why my main crop appears to be woodchips. Originally this garden began as a 12 x 12 foot veggie garden tilled and planted before I had my hip operation in 2003 and had to limit (try to limit) my garden activities. After my successful hip replacement I added a…
The view from the bedroom window on May 5 shows that the grass is greening up, but it is cold, 46 degrees, cloudy and windy. I dug up plants for the Bridge of Flowers plant sale, but then went back in the house to work in front of the woodstove. Now it is hot! 80 degrees. What a difference a week makes. We had a little rain and warmer days - although with strong breezes it has still felt…
When did you start gardening? I was 25 and we had moved into our first house on Maple Street in Canton, Connecticut. It was a big old Victorian with a large front yard shaded by the maples that marched up and down both sides of the street. It had almost no backyard, just an 8 foot wide cement patio between the house and a steep weedy bank. My first plantings were marigolds planted on either side of the…
My plan to have a twice a month bloom record is off to a slow start, but the tree peonies are right on time, beginning to bloom on the first of June. This is Guan Yin Mian. Guan Yin is the Goddess of Mercy, and the work 'mian' is face. Not hard to see the face of a goddess in this beautiful and hardy plant. Next to her is a deeper pink tree peony, name lost, that was…
On April 16, 1989 my husband Henry and I left NYC for Beijing . We never imagined the events of June 4 that were even then beginning. Our only thought was about taking up my year long post as 'polisher', a kind of sub-editor, for Women of China English Monthly Magazine published by the All China Women's Federation. We arrived at 2 a.m. Beijing time, exhausted, but met by excited members of my work unit. They drove us…
On this Monday morning I can report on a full weekend beginning with a New England Wildflower Society member Plant Swap at Nasami Farm. I brought waldsteinia and tiarella and came home with Jacob's ladder, an unusual epimedium, more tiarellas, a spicebush plant (very tiny) and an unusual native sedum. There was a big crowd and a big tent for for the Greenfield Community College graduation Saturday afternoon. Granddaughter Tricia was graduation with honors and an Associate Degree…
“Container gardening is such hard work!” a friend said to me the other day. Work I thought? A lot of thought which is in itself a lot of work, but I didn’t think that is what she meant. I soon learned that the work she had taken on was lugging a heavy watering can to the end of a long country driveway to water a hanging basket. That is work! And it has to be done because container…