Finally, I have been able to start my spring garden chores. The temperature got up to 50 degrees yesterday and there was some sun. I raked the front lawn and beds, including the Daylily Bank. I can never decide whether it is good or bad to cut down daylily foliage in the fall, but whatever I thought, I didn't do it last year. Fortunately, a steel rake is all it takes to pull out most of the dead…
Dry shade is a challenge in the garden, but epimediums and hellebores, two very different plants, both turn dry shade into an opportunity. For years I admired epimediums in other gardens, always asking the name of the beautiful low plant with heart shaped leaves. Sometimes I got no answer, but even when I did I was incapable of remembering the word epimedium. I finally saw a pot of this plant at the Blue Meadow nursery in Montague and,…
The Bridge of Flowers opened today. There was a delay while the new irrigation system was installed. Now the beds on both sides of the path can be watered, without a water brigade. The volunteer Flower Brigade was on duty, raking and bringing the debris to the Franklin County Waste Management Dumpster. The debris will eventually come back to the Bridge as beautiful nourishing compost from Martin's Farm in Greenfield. There aren't many flowers yet, but more will…
Before she began painting flowers Susan Valentine was a gardener. "Focusing on what each plant needs and what it produces if it gets what it needs was what I thought about most of my waking hours. Painting their portraits came very naturally out of that process," she said when I asked how she came to paint these translucent blossoms. Flowers have always been a popular subject for painters. They are varied in color and form - and they…
The view from my bedroom window on March 1 was snow covered and cold. 5 degrees at 7 a.m. March 9 and the view wasn't much different. 20 degrees at 7 a.m. but daytime temps haven't gotten much above freezing. Because it is so cold the snow is not melting. No reason to take more photos. It remains cold and the view doesn't change much. 22 degrees at 7 a.m. and windy. 30 degrees at 7 a.m. but…
The April 2014 issue of Fine Gardening magazine has an article by Peter Kukielski, former curator of the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden at the New York Botanical Garden titled Easy Picture Perfect Roses. Peter knows all about 'Easy' roses because during his tenure at that garden he ripped out 200 or so of the roses in the garden that needed pesticides and fungicides to survive and then replaced them with 693 roses that did not need that kind…
Tiarella is the latest plant added to my arsenal as I try to lessen, if not eliminate our lawn, otherwise known as the Flowery Mead where thrive violets, dandelions, hawkweeds and many other wildflowers. These tiarellas are planted east of the Peony Hedge, and west of what will be the Hydrangea Hedge. Tiarella, also known as foam flower, for obvious reasons, is a native flower and groundcover. It likes the shade and requires no care. In the photo…
Nancy Ondra has been gardening for over 20 years and she has ten books to show for it and Five Plant Gardens: 52 ways to Grow a Perennial Garden with Just Five Plants (Storey Publishing $18.95) is her latest. This book has something for everyone, but it takes garden design to a new level of ease and understanding for the novice gardener. Even an inexperienced flower gardener understands pretty quickly that you put tall plants in back…
I never imagined that tea changed the world. In my world, tea was served endlessly in the English novels I love, but tea did not become a regular part of my life until I met Elsa Bakalar in 1980. With Elsa I could imagine myself living in one of those English village novels where tea was served up with gossip, or to survive shock with milk and sugar. Now I have a collection of tea pots –…
It snowed and rained last night. As the first day of spring dawned the plow came through, but mostly they were sanding the road because things were a bit icy outside. The temperature was already 34 degrees - and climbing. More showers. The rain stopped! Only the roofs are dripping, dripping. The sun came out and raised the temperature to 45 degrees. The snow will melt some today. I am not discouraged because I know it could always…