This Garden Bloggers Bloom Day is rainy, but I finally have blooms. Not many. Snowdrops are blooming in front of the house, and in the erstwhile orchard. I had hoped that I might have a few daffodils, buds at least, but it is not to be. I saw these Van Sion Daffodils blooming down in Charlemont - 1000 feet lower than Heath - and checked my Van Sions, an old and very early daff, but I don't even…
For some people the initials CSA are just another of those annoying acronyms that can make our conversations sound like an unintelligible inter-office memo. For some CSA means Community Supported Agriculture which encompasses delicious local food, help for the farmer, and a community of like-minded folk who enjoy fresh food, and enjoy knowing they are supporting farmers and farms, and the very land and environment that surrounds us. Small farmers never think they are going to get rich…
Applejack is a wonderful rose, growing on a graceful bush about 7 or 8 feet tall with single pink flowers. It doesn't begin blooming until mid-June but I had to cheer myself up with a post and picture of a pretty pink country rose because winter is not relenting easily. The weatherman teases and promises 60 degree days and sun, but each afternoon I finally give up and build a fire in the wood stove. Griffith Buckwas a great…
For only the third time since the Perennial Plant Association's Plant of the Year program was instituted an ornamental grass, Panicum virgata 'Northwind' has been given this designation. 'Northwind', is a 5 foot tall blue green switchgrass that turns golden in the fall. The fine flower panicles rise another foot or so above the foliage. 'Northwind' has a very erect and upright growth which makes it ideal for narrow sites. It needs sun, but is tolerant of most soils.…
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…