When most of us think about providing play space for our kids in the yard, we usually think about a swing set or a play structure of some sort. Schools tend to take the same sort of approach, but there is another way of looking at ‘play space’ and the potential it holds for learning at school, and at home. Ginny Sullivan began her teaching career at the Shady Hill School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. As a first grade…
I left home Tuesday afternoon, racing the storm, because I was planning on having lots of educational fun in Cambridge while I was staying there visiting with my son. I had scheduled a visit on Wednesday to see the Glass Flowers at Harvard's Museum of Natural History and then a meeting with other garden writers on Thursday. The storm stopped, but so did a lot of traffic in town. The Museum was closed! The Museum was closed but…
Many of us probably don’t fuss very much when we are making a flower arrangement for our dining table. We run out into the garden and cut a little bit of whatever is in bloom and a few leaves, put them in a vase with little fuss and we are done. However if we are make a more important arrangement for a special party, for a friend’s wedding, or the church altar, we will need more flowers and…
Constance Spry found beauty in places others had not noticed. The unexpected drama of the plants she used surprised and delighted people. She turned to the vegetable garden and found one of her favorite plants – kale – but used other vegetables and fruits to brilliant effect. Her arrangements would not have the same startling effect today, because the ideas she propounded, her cry to forget about the rules and have fun, to see beauty in the commonplace…
“I want to shout out: do what you please, follow your own star; be original if you want to be and don’t if you don’t want to be. Just be natural and gay and light-hearted and pretty and simple and overflowing and general and baroque and bare and austere and stylized and wild and daring and conservative, and learn and learn and learn. Open your minds to every form of beauty.” Constance Spry Those passionate words came from…
Rose at Ramble 0n Rose has won The Perennial Gardner's Design Primer by Stephanie Cohen and Nancy Ondra. Congratulations! I want to thank everyone who has helped me celebrate three years of blogging this month. And thank you Storey Publications for being so generous in making this Giveaway possible.
On a day like today I bitterly regret the lack of a windbreak to the northwest of our house where the wind roars down the hill. Only a single white pine, the sole tree to survive a windbreak planting more than 20 years ago, impedes the blast. My husband and I have been studying that pine and thinking it is time to try again. Therefore, it might not be pure coincidence that I arranged to meet with Sue…
It isn't quite Christmas so it is no surprise that the Christmas cactus (Schlumbergera bridgesii) is mostly fat pink buds. As usual my angelwing begonia has a very few pink blossoms. Along with my dependable and ever blooming abutilon these plants are now in our bedroom in the beneath the west window, but very near the south window. This room is very bright during the day, and very cool at night. We had to move plants from the…
I remember when I first learned about perennials and thought - what a great idea, I'll never have to replant again. LOL. Even if pernnials didn't have to be divided, or die, most of us still have to move plants, add plants or remove plants in our attempts to have a garden that pleases the eye and the heart. For my full review you can click here, but I can tell you briefly that The Perennial Gardener's Design…
Chosen by a random number generator Ellen Sousa of Turkey Hill Brook Farm is the winner of Recipes from the Root Cellar! In her comment she mentions that there is a passageway between her garage and basement that maintains a consistent temperature that allows her to store winter vegetables so she'll be able to put this cookbook to good use. Congratulations, Ellen. I will get Ellen's address and send this book right out. I'm sure she will find…