My Hero, Griffith Buck

  • Post published:06/23/2010
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Dr. Griffith Buck (1915-1991) is my hero because when he was working at the Iowa State College after the Second World War he began hybidizing roses that were hardy and disease resistant. At that time (and still today) rose gardeners knew they had to spray and coddle their roses.  Buck was a man ahead of his time; nowadays many poison sprays for roses are being banned for environmental reasons and other hybridizers are working on disease resistant rose…

Designing with Thought

  • Post published:06/19/2010
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Last week I was privileged to be invited by Paul Hellmund, Director, to the Conway School of Landscape Design for the presentations of term projects by this year’s class.  I was particularly interested in two of those projects: a feasibility study for the Davis Street School site and plans for a Botanical and Geological Garden at Greenfield Community College. I have long been an admirer of the Conway School of Landscape Design with its emphasis on environmentally sound…

Dream Housing

  • Post published:06/05/2010
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When I first met my husband in 1971 we used to dream about our ideal home. Inspired by a Beetle Bailey comic strip, we called this mythical place Pork Corners. There was nothing porky about my house on Grinnell Street in Greenfield, but there in the tiny side yard I planted my first vegetable garden. I kissed the friend who came to dinner and brought a load of old horse manure as a thank you.  He sent a…

How to Plant a Shrub

  • Post published:05/19/2010
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In the olden days planting wisdom said you needed a $5 hole for a fifty cent plant.  Inflation is everywhere. Now when I guy my $35 Proven Winners Pinky Winky hydrangea I know I need at least a $50 hole. This was a lesson I gave my daughter last weekend when I learned she was much given to taking out a shovelful of soil, sticking a plant in and considering the job done.  My $50 hole is 24…

Local Lunch at The Academy

  • Post published:05/12/2010
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Jeannie Bartlett, a senior at The Academy in Charlemont, has many interests including “farms, food, the environment, health and community” which she put together in a delicious way. Local Lunches, her Independent Senior Project, fed Academy students a monthly lunch composed of local ingredients all year. Todd Sumner, Academy Headmaster, explained “Senior projects are intended to extend a student’s classroom learning to provide service, and to apply and implement their learning. Students have to be responsible for a…

Rain Gardens for Earth Day

  • Post published:04/22/2010
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The term rain gardens sounds kind of romantic. I imagine something vaguely tropical with exotic blossoms amid rain drenched foliage viewed from a wicker chair on a veranda.  In reality a rain garden can have colorful blossoms, not necessarily exotic, but when the foliage is rain drenched the rain garden is doing its work of infiltration. Infiltration is not a romantic term. I have heard the term rain garden and seen Master Gardener work sheets on building a…

Our Sustainable Home & Landscape

  • Post published:04/12/2010
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Jan over at Thanks for 2day is asking us to write about our current and or planned efforts to garden and live sustainably by April 15. There are prizes!  And a chance to learn more about each other, and more ways to live a greener life. Check out Jan's blog for all information and don't forget -  Earth Day is coming up - for the 40th year! I have been documenting, to some degree, our attempts to live…

Mark Your Calendars

  • Post published:04/09/2010
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As the gardens green up and come into bloom special events are also popping up everywhere. Tower Hill Botanic Garden will have its Free Spring Open House on Sunday, April 11 from 10 to 5 pm. For the first time visitors will enter through the new Reception Gateway. Right now the famed field of 25,000 daffodils is in bloom. Read about my trip to Tower Hill last summer here. Next weekend IKEBANA--the Japanese art of floral design--will be…

Two Beautiful Sights

  • Post published:04/07/2010
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Yesterday I went to Greenfield to hear a talk by the charming Ed Himlan of the Massachusetts Watershed Coalition talk about rain gardens, but we didn't have to stand out in the rain to enjoy it and learn. Did you know that the major cause of pollution in our waterways is from rainwater runoff?  More on that later. During my drive about town I admired the forsythia in bloom everywhere. It hurts me to see bushes pruned severely…

Wood Chips and Mulch More

  • Post published:03/23/2010
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After soil building, mulching  is probably the number two topic for gardeners.  Kerry Mendez, author of The Ultimate Gardener's Top Ten Lists, talks about both these important topics in her talks and in her book. There was also considerable discussion at the Trillium Workshop I attended on Sunday.  I mulch all I can, and have stories to tell myself. Last year our town left piles of wood chips all over town for us gardeners to use as we…