Celebrating Eight Years of Blogging – Giveaway

This year Cool Springs Press is helping me celebrate my eight years of blogging with a Giveaway of Terrariums: Gardens Under Glass. These have been rich years for me be cause my blog has brought so many wonderful gardeners into my life, and so many beautiful gardening experiences. With other garden bloggers I travelled to Buffalo and to Seattle and saw beautiful gardens, large and small and all different. This past summer I attended a Garden Writers Conference…

Bridge of Flowers – Blooming for 85 years

  • Post published:05/17/2015
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This year is the 85th anniversary of the Bridge of Flowers. There have been many changes since the trolley was discontinued and Antoinette Burnham declared that if an abandoned bridge could grow weeds it could grow flowers. It was with community effort that the Bridge of Flowers first bloomed in 1930. It blooms exuberantly today, from April and well into October. Anyone who has ever owned a house and dealt with necessary ongoing maintenance will understand the changes…

Gifts for the Gardener – still time to shop

  • Post published:12/20/2014
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I have never thought it very hard to find gifts for the gardener. After all, what does a gift say? I love you? I understand you? I want you to enjoy your days? I want your dreams to come true? I share your passion and I know just what you need? No matter what your message there are garden centers and other kinds of shops that have just the gifts to convey these messages to the gardener in…

Franklin County Fair – Int’l Year of Family Farm

  • Post published:09/08/2014
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The Franklin County Fair is always a celebration of family farms and gardeners. This view from the balcony gives only a hint of the perfect produce, creativity and business acumen of local farmers and gardeners. Red Fire Farm is just one of the area's most successful small farm, a testament to farmer Ryan Voilland's farming skills, but also his people management and business skills. The dairy farm is not yet dead in Western Massachusetts and these young people…

Full Weekend Monday Report – June 1, 2014

  • Post published:06/02/2014
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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…

A Country Woman’s Language of Love

  • Post published:02/10/2014
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I have written about the language of love before, giving it my own modern spin. Sharon Selz at The Country Woman Magazine has created several bouquets filled with loving messages in a more traditional tone. The bouquet pictured here says: I am lonely without you and desire a return of your constant love and affection. Flowers: hyacinth (constancy), jonquil (I desire a return of affection), rose (love), heather (solitude)  I expect one could deconstruct her beautiful tussie mussies…

Greenfield Winter Fare 2014

  • Post published:01/30/2014
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If I am counting correctly this is the 7th Greenfield Annual Winter Fare which will bring truckloads of fresh local vegetables to Greenfield High School on Saturday, February 1.  Enter from Kent Street off Silver Street. Beyond  vegetables there will be preserved products like pickles and syrup, honey and jams. Frozen meat!  And to keep you shopping from 10 am til 1 pm music will be provided by Last Night's Fun, and soup provided by The Brass Buckle,…

Attend to the Wisdom of the Young as 2014 Begins

  • Post published:01/06/2014
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We all need to pay attention to the wisdom of the young. My husband was telling our visiting great-grandaughter Bella (age 7 1/4) that while Granny didn't make New Year's Resolutions, she did try to do a little bit of everything that she wanted to enjoy on New Year's Day. On New Year's Day Bella went to Eastern Heath to spend the afternoon with her good friend Hazel. They both returned to our house for supper. There was…

Many Ways of Looking at the New Year

  • Post published:12/28/2013
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              New Year’s resolutions. The beginning of a New Year always has something of the seductive about it, no matter how dismissive we try to be, or how skeptical we think we have become.             I look at the blankness of the calendar’s pages, matching the blankness of the winter landscape and think about the ways I will fill the days of the new year, fill my days in the garden.            …

Giveaway to Celebrate Six Years of Blogging

Six years of blogging and I'm celebrating with a Giveaway. It hardly seems possible. Six years of documenting my garden, mostly, but also family events. Because of my blog I have met gardeners from around the country at Flings.  All you have to do to meet some of them is click on the Buffa10 badge on the right side of the page. Over these six years and 1,406 posts I have learned that gardeners have a wide range…