A Toast to the Honey Bee

  • Post published:10/24/2009
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“The Creator may be seen in all the works of his hands; but in few more directly than in the wise economy of the Honey-Bee.” Lorenzo L. Langstroth  1853               Lorenzo L. Langstroth was Pastor of the Second Congregational Church in Greenfield between 1843 and 1848. His memorial on Bank Row, placed in 1948, includes an image of the hive with moveable frames that he invented. For the first time beekeepers, who had been gathering honey since…

The Perennial Care Manual

  • Post published:09/30/2009
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The pace is slightly more relaxed, but the fall season can be just as busy for gardeners as the spring season.  Many of the same tasks are required, clean up, soil building, compost building, and planting.             In the autumn, all gardeners, both novice and experienced, have another chance to launch the next attempt to improve their gardens.  For flower gardeners this means a comprehensive new guide to perennial care might be in order.             With The Perennial…

Calligraphy Lesson

  • Post published:08/06/2009
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Yesterday famed author and illustrator Ed Young made a presentation at the Childrens Literature Festival  for the young set at Buckland Shelburne Elementary School. He did everything the children asked, making a lion - and a chicken - according to their directions  while he stood behind the easel and making a horse paper cut. He also had the children hold a long long scroll with a poem he had written some 20 years ago to demonstrate Chinese characters.  In China,…

Garden Bloggers Book Club

  • Post published:01/31/2008
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My Friend Elsa Though I haven’t read Dear Friend and Gardener I have my own great garden friend. When I moved to my Massachusetts hilltop, I found that one of our area’s most famous perennial gardeners, Elsa Bakalar, lived on a neighboring hilltop. She was a generation older, British, much more knowledgeable about flower gardens, and way more opinionated than I was about anything but happy to befriend a novice. She is a born teacher, and even now…