Last week I visited the Lyman Plant House at Smith College in preparation for a column and post about the Annual Chrysanthemum Show which begins Friday, November 5 with a talk by Smith alum and author Paula Dietz about the gardens she has visited and written about in her book, On Gardens. The Smith Botanical Garden and the Lyman Plant House are treasures for the whole community to use. The Lyman Plant House is open every day (except Thanksgiving and…
In spite of the warm fall, with only one real frost, the garden is beginning to die. Its demise seems to have been hurried by the three days of rain we just had. All these photos were taken in the rain. This is the very last daylily of summer. Ann Varner is a real trooper. Behind her you can see there are a few Buttercream nasturtiums crawling around, and it has been so warm that even the canna…
The gardening year really has two planting seasons, spring and fall. Spring planting season is all a-rush with excitement because you can finally get your hands in the dirt, carefully chosen plants are arriving and a casual browse through the local nurseries has sent you home with a truckload of new plants and plans. And then there is the bliss of working beneath an ever warmer and brighter sun. Fall planting season tends to be less exuberant, with…
The days are growing shorter. When I drive down my road I have begun averting my eyes from a maple branch that has burst into flame. Autumn is officially upon us. And yet there is a lot of bloom in my garden. One of the benefits of annuals is that many will bloom well into the fall. I have pots of snapdragons, petunias, osteospurnum and ‘Million Bells,’ a healthy blooming border of an annual salvia around the Shed…
While in town yesterday I met a friend who said he was busy cutting back the peonies and generally trying to close up the garden because he is leaving for Paris in a week or so. Until the end of October. Poor baby. So I came home and looked at my peonies, which will need a lot of weeding as well as cutting back. Of course, the tree peonies which produce large blossoms like Guan Yin Mian on…
The sun is shining and it is almost warm this morning.
Even after Irene and the following storm that jointly dropped at least 14 inches of rain inside one week the garden is looking pretty good. This yarrow is still putting out blooms even through the foliage of the yellow loosestrife and a huge squash plant in the Front Garden. These buttery yellow nasturtiums I planted kept washing away in the heavy spring rains but you'd never know how few plants came through. They are making the barrier-transition area…
It has been exactly a week since I wrote about our experience of Irene here. Since then towns across the region have been busy picking up the pieces. Governor Deval Patrick made his third trip to Heath (the first governor in history to pay so much attention to Heath) and on Wednesday he met with town officials. Here he is looking at a map of damaged road with Mike Smith in his Fire Chief uniform, but he is…
This morning dawned cool and misty. A walk through the garden was so quiet and peaceful. A glorious morning indeed. And we look forward to a glorious day at the Heath Fair. Yesterday was all energetic activity. We had scores of boxes of books to bring to the Fair for the Annual Friends of the Heath Free Public Library book sale. $1 for hardcovers! This is our big fundraiser for the year. After loading up the books, we…
My husband was amused to wake up yesterday morning and find me - and the gray cat - out in the garden weeding in between drizzly sprinkles of rain. I have been trying to weed for weeks, but somehow there hasn't been time. And there wasn't much time yesterday either, but you can get an idea of what is blooming right now: Miss Lingaard phlox hasn't quite given up, a pink phlox is in full flower, as is Blue…