The children of the Erving Elementary Preschool were so proud of the sunflowers they grew that they sent representatives to the Recorder/Greenfield Garden Club Sunflower Contest in August. When the children returned to Erving they carried back prize ribbons for the heaviest sunflower head and for the third tallest. But their garden is about more than glory. The preschool class of 3 and 4 year olds, led by teacher Mary Glabach with the assistance of Kristin Lilly, Becky…
Thinking there might be a Flower Boy or two, the bride's attendants were billed as Flower Children, but the boys did not appear, or at least not in the procession. I didn't get a photo until they were sitting at the bride and groom's feet as they listened to tales of Amperands, jars of blueberries, roots and fruitfulness, and other things that made the 10 year old boys among the attendees squirm. But to take a step back. When…
More about this beautiful celebration tomorrow, once we have regained our romantic senses.
According to my records we had 4 inches of rain in August, more than half of that on August 22 and 23. No rain so far in September, at least not here in Heath. The result is incredibly dry soil, and a hose that ran dry last week while I was filling the chicken waterers. Granted, I had watered the vegetable garden with a sprinkler for 45 minutes before that, but this has never happened in the 30…
When photographers ask me the best season for visiting the Bridge of Flowers in Shelburne Falls, I say there is no Best Season. The joy of the Bridge is the ever changing and ever beautiful array of flowers from April through October. Right now, if you enter the Bridge on the Shelburne side, you will not only have the variety of color and texture on the Bridge, look up and you will see the glory of the hillside…
Gloria Pacosa can arrange just about anything, dinner parties, events, wedding flowers, pie baking, but when we got together the other day to shoot a TV show for Falls Cable in Shelburne Falls, I wanted her to arrange flowers. She had begun gathering material before I arrived. She had raided the flower garden for these dark scabiosa, the last of the sweet peas and gomphrena, as well as zinnias, sunflowers and . She said just…
I wasn't going to miss another Three for Thursday hosted by Cindy over at My Corner of Katy. Right now I have three pink natives blooming in my garden. I might be stretching a point to all this bee balm pink, but it is not brilliant scarlet so I am including it. Bee balm, Monarda, is native to North America as are the other two pinks in my garden. Bee balm is in my herb garden in front…
If Alma Potchke is blooming it must be September Bloom Day. I thank Carol at May Dreams Gardens for thinking of this wonderful way to keep a bloom record of my own garden, and to see what else is in bloom over this land. This beautiful achillea has bloomed beautifully all summer. It is at the end of the lettuce bed in the new Front Garden which means it has gotten watered along with the lettuce, including the…
Dan Conlon, co-owner with his wife Bonita of Warm Colors Apiary, President of both the Massachusetts Beekeepers Association and the Franklin County Beekeepers Association, began keeping bees when he was 14 years old. He lived at the edge of a Dayton, Ohio suburb, close enough to farmlands that he got a summer job helping a farmer with haying and whatever needed to be done. “The farmer kept a few beehives, because many farmers did at that time, knowing…
Over at Garden Rant Mary Gray's guest rant bewailed the state of many school grounds, all concrete and lawn. I am very familiar with the school grounds that she describes, but I feel fortunate that the children in our small town have a very different school experience. The Heath Elementary School, which opened in 1996, was built in a pasture surrounded by woodland. When the school bus pulls off the dirt road onto the driveway it passes a…