Category: In the Yard | Gardening and Landscaping

Beginning to plant perennials along the periphery of the pond (I guess today has been brought to us by the letter “p”). The surface of the water really reflects the warm glow of the late afternoon sun on the trees. We put in so many new plantings around the pond…

After a look at the weather forecast in September, we made a late-night decision to bring the geraniums/ pelargoniums into their “winter quarters” in the sunroom. Turns out that it was probably a prudent decision, as it seems there was a touch of frost on the lawn this morning. I…

The first of the apples are ripening up – in this case, Duchess of Oldenburg, a variety supposedly originating in the area of Tula, Russia, and brought to New England in the early 1800s. The tradeoff for early ripening is soft flesh, which means they do not store well and…

We love to be off on vacation, but we also love to come home. Having a yard full of beautiful perennials helps too.

A Resilient Bloom The water lilies don’t seem to mind the blazing sun. In fact, they seem to flaunt their presence in the face of it with their showy blooms and lush green leaves. Even with our relatively cold winters, these have thrived in their little pool for well over…

Of all of the different lilacs we’ve accumulated over the years, my favorite remains the blush bloom on the right, known as the Beauty of Moscow. June fourth and the lilacs still aren’t fully in bloom….how crazy is that. Still, they’re open enough so that you can smell them as…

It doesn’t make for very elegant photos unless you love organic gardening. And then you refer to it as “black gold”. One of our favorite spring rituals involves scooping loads of compost from the heap behind the barn and then adding it to the vegetable garden. It’s always a little…

It feels like we’ve got a nice start on pruning the grapevines – thanks to early snowmelt and a couple of nice days. While Stacy extricated one of our Reliance red seedless grapevines from a lilac at the corner of the house, I got the vines on top of the…

The potted herbs are now in the sunroom, safe from any impending snowfall. Not that the sage and rosemaries mind a dusting of snow, but we don’t want the terracotta pots to freeze and break. It sure is nice to be able to walk into the sunroom and snip some…