Forbes Library Leads Off Garden Tour Season

  • Post published:05/29/2013
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Julie Abramson' s garden  is just one of six garden that will enchant garden lovers on the Forbes Library Garden Tour on Saturday, June 8, from 10 am til 3 pm. Julie's is a collector's garden that features some notable trees, clematis, and a colorful array of perennials and a rock garden. I was intrigued by the description of a rustic arbor covered with climbinbing hydrangea, PLUS two other arbors covered with roses, honeysuckle and clematis. Pure romance!…

Who Makes the Bridge of Flowers Bloom? Carol DeLorenzo

  • Post published:05/18/2013
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For the past 12 years Carol DeLorenzo has been the guiding vision behind the changing bloom seasons on the Bridge of Flowers. However, she didn’t start her professional life thinking about flowers. “After I graduated from the College of the Atlantic, I got a fellowship that allowed me to spend a year traveling around the world, focusing on agricultural issues. When I returned to the United States I got a job as co-manager of a community based farm.…

Bridge of Flowers Plant Sale – Saturday May 18

  • Post published:05/17/2013
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One thousdand perennials are ready for the Bridge of Flowers Plant Sale on Saturday, May 18. When the starting bell rings at 9 am (no sales before that hour) the buying begins. From this photo you might be able to pick out lady's mantle, candelabra primroses, hostas, Solomon's seal, ferns, and bleeding hearts, pink and white. I can tell you that there are also peonies, fairy bells (new to me) campanulas, yarrow, achillea, shasta daisies, and some shrubs…

Awesome Annuals for the Garden

  • Post published:05/12/2013
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  If you have a flower garden, chances are you grow a few annuals. For a while perennials were the fashionable family and annuals were almost forgotten. At least they were forgotten in conversation and garden articles, but to keep a garden in bloom from spring into fall annuals are essential. Each perennial will bloom for its three or four week period, but an annual will bloom all summer. It is no wonder that some of our favorite…

Renovating and Planting Continue

  • Post published:05/22/2012
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Renovating and planting the lawn bed continues. I had to wait until after the Bridge of Flowers Plant Sale before I made my final 'design' decisions.  This is the end of the Lawn Bed, all cleaned out of a nearly dead potentilla and lots of weeds. I also removed two clumps of ornamental grass that had been grown in pots last summer and just stuck in this bed in the fall. "Just sticking" a plant somewhere is always…

The Bridge of Flowers on National Public Gardens Day

  • Post published:05/11/2012
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In 2004, when the Bridge of Flowers was nearing its 75th anniversary, Elaine Parmett, a member of the Bridge Committee, decided to find out just who and how the Bridge of Flowers began. “I was a historian so I did research and learned it was Antoinette Burnham in 1928 who complained about the way weeds had taken over the abandoned trolley bridge. She wondered why they couldn’t have a flower garden instead. Her husband, who worked for the…

Bridge of Flowers – National Public Gardens Day Coming Up

  • Post published:05/09/2012
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The Bridge of Flowers is our local public garden, open and blooming every day from April 1 - October 30. Free! Universally accessible. I'll be celebrating National Public Gardens Day, May 11 this year, with a stroll over the Bridge of Flowers. What will you do? I've been almost Wordless, but for real Wordlessness this Wednesday click here

Geranium and Heuchera: Plants of the Year

  • Post published:01/14/2012
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The National Garden Bureau’s goal is to make the world more beautiful with plants by inspiring gardeners and giving them useful information. This year they have named 2012 The Year of the Geranium and the Year of the Heuchera. Both of these flower families are large and varied, but none have difficult requirements for growing success. The geranium the NGB is celebrating this year can more accurately be called pelargonium. When Linnaeus of Sweden first published his plant…

Bridge of Flowers – End of Season

  • Post published:10/26/2011
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Chrysanthemums were planted in September. We want the Bridge to be full of bloom all season. I am so happy to see roses still in bloom. I am also happy to see a quiet river behind these dahlias. The dahlias are important at this season. But the weather has been so relatively mild that even the begonias are still blooming. The gardens will be put to bed and the official garden season ends on Sunday, October 30.  Have…

Meditation on the Morning Glory

  • Post published:09/27/2011
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This is the view out the window next to the breakfast table. From August into October and really killing frosts these Grandpa Ott morning glories prepare me for my day. And what a way to start the day - with Glory! Surely the day will be filled with moments of beauty, of inspiration, of opportunity to spread a little glory. Of course the sun does not illuminate and gild the glories every morning. Sometimes the light is dim,…