I visited the High Line a few years ago, before it was finished, and I hope to visit this summer and walk the entire length of this beautiful elevated garden - even bigger than our own Bridge of Flowers. The High Line ended abruptly here in May of 2010, and it was completed at the Rail Yards until September 2014. But now there is a proposal for a Greenline garden that would turn the diagonal 40 blocks of…
The April 2014 issue of Fine Gardening magazine has an article by Peter Kukielski, former curator of the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden at the New York Botanical Garden titled Easy Picture Perfect Roses. Peter knows all about 'Easy' roses because during his tenure at that garden he ripped out 200 or so of the roses in the garden that needed pesticides and fungicides to survive and then replaced them with 693 roses that did not need that kind…
When I visited the Boston Public Garden on September 2, I ran into this demonstration right under the magnificent statue of George Washington. It made sense to hold a demonstration for independence under the statue of one of our own founders of an independent nation, promising liberty to all, but I couldn't tell what the demonstration was all about. It was not until one woman held out this banner than I even knew the issue, but still I did…
For the past 12 years Carol DeLorenzo has been the guiding vision behind the changing bloom seasons on the Bridge of Flowers. However, she didn’t start her professional life thinking about flowers. “After I graduated from the College of the Atlantic, I got a fellowship that allowed me to spend a year traveling around the world, focusing on agricultural issues. When I returned to the United States I got a job as co-manager of a community based farm.…
Yesterday I drove into the valley to see tulips, and many other bulbs and flowers, blooming at the Mt. Holyoke College Talcott Greenhouse and the Smith College Lyman Plant House. Both institutions are preparing for their annual Spring Bulb shows which require attentive and scientific handling of the potted plants, cool and then slowly warming so that they are at the perfect moment for spring-hungry flower lovers to visit them when the shows open on Saturday, March 2. Both…
In 2004, when the Bridge of Flowers was nearing its 75th anniversary, Elaine Parmett, a member of the Bridge Committee, decided to find out just who and how the Bridge of Flowers began. “I was a historian so I did research and learned it was Antoinette Burnham in 1928 who complained about the way weeds had taken over the abandoned trolley bridge. She wondered why they couldn’t have a flower garden instead. Her husband, who worked for the…
The Bridge of Flowers is our local public garden, open and blooming every day from April 1 - October 30. Free! Universally accessible. I'll be celebrating National Public Gardens Day, May 11 this year, with a stroll over the Bridge of Flowers. What will you do? I've been almost Wordless, but for real Wordlessness this Wednesday click here
The Bridge of Flowers officially closed on October 30, but it will be open for a few more days so people can take the scenic route from Shelburne to Buckland OR Buckland to Shelburne. Last week there was a final exciting event. Note the graceful ironwork on the Bridge sign. It was a collaborative community effort between Bill Austin and Grey Marchese of Austin Design in Colrain, artist/blacksmith Bob Compton of Rising Sun Forge in Conway, and Michael Therrien's…
When I joined 70 other garden bloggers in Seattle this past summer, one of the first places we visited was the Elisabeth C. Miller Botanic Garden which is a part of the University of Washington. There were familiar plants, and not so familiar plants like these cardoons, which are related to the artichoke and make for some sophisticated eating. Like many botanic gardens there are trial beds and educational projects like this green roof. It looks like it…
Our area suffered flooding from Tropical Storm Irene and the storm that followed a week after causing enormous damage as rivers and streams overflowed their banks. We have recovered on our road so today I prefer to think about the gentler water in our gardens that calms and soothes. Here are some of the the quiet waters I saw in Seattle this summer at the Garden Bloggers Fling. Only a big public garden can have a big water…