I like to celebrate the winter solstice. As a gardener it is natural to observe the cycles of the season and while the celebrations that herald the coming of January 1st seem arbitrary, marking the exact moment when the earth begins to draw closer to the sun, thus signaling the [...]
In late November most garden blogs are about the end of the season blues, or relief, depending upon the kind of season we’ve had. This year was not so easy at times, but all in all it was a good one. We started wet, very wet, and then dried out too much over the summer. [...]
It’s getting colder outside as November approaches and while there are only a few weeks left to plant trees, shrubs, or perennials, there’s still plenty of time to plant flowering bulbs such as daffodils, tulips, crocus, and lilies. I plant bulbs until the ground freezes. In fact, it’s better to wait until temperatures hold steadily [...]
While summer is fine for vacationing on the shore it is often a very tough time in the garden, and we had a tough time of it this year with over 30 days of temperatures above 90 degrees combined with what seemed like days on end without rain. A lot of plants, some of them [...]
Did you know that September 23rd is the first day of Autumn? This is based upon the astronomical position of the Earth within it’s orbit around the sun. However, true seasonal autumn rarely coincides with astronomical autumn. In New England it’s pretty close, but September can still feel like summer. It isn’t until October that [...]
This isn’t a regular blog where we write about an interesting garden or landscaping topic, but we think you will find this topic as interesting as if we were writing about an amazing new perennial that, for instance, bloomed from March through November, that the deer will not eat, and that requires no maintenance whatsoever. [...]
One thing I see less and less in gardens these days are gardeners that mix annual plants with perennials and shrubs. I’m not sure why, but it seems to be that fewer and fewer gardeners take the time to design border combinations using all kinds of herbaceous materials: annuals, perennials, and tender perennials like dahlias. [...]
Last week the residents of my town voted on a budget for the next fiscal year. There was some contention among the citizens regarding the need to raise taxes during difficult economic times, but the roads need paving, the police and fire departments must be funded, and the schools for our children staffed and maintained. [...]
The thing about rain is that it never rains right. When we need a good soaking we get squalls, more wind than wet and not enough water to soak through the mulch. When we’ve already had more than enough rain then we get even more, several inches more over several days. Rarely, if ever at [...]
Late winter in New England is never an easy time. The weather turns quickly, changing from frigid, to raw (a term I never used for the weather until I came to Connecticut), to warm, and then back again to cold or raw. Wet and heavy snow, like the kind we had a few weeks ago, [...]