A few months ago Don Stratham, a New York state garden consultant, wrote a blog post about garden mishaps, or learning from failures in the garden, in his blog called Rooting for Ideas. He listed some of his mistakes — and what they had taught him. But what his post made me think of was…
I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions. But planning ahead for the garden is a regular winter activity. So this is what I plan (correction: make that hope) to do in 2014. 1. Clean up loose ends. This category includes more things than I like to think about. I often start new projects before the old…
After several more days of snow, our landscape is a study in black, white, and grey… Birch trees on the hillside: an arrangement in grey and black, minus Whistler’s mother. with the occasional touch of green… Spruce trees in the lower field and yellow. A touch of yellow on a broken ash tree. So many…
For the first time since I started writing this blog, a post is late, and by several days. Oh, well, it’s the holidays, you may think. But no, for almost a year now, I’ve managed a timely entry despite holidays, vacations and intense pressures to come away from the computer and enjoy myself. So it’s not…
My first attempt to use ornamental grasses was in a section of the garden I call the yin yang. An old resort hotel once stood on the property (to my amazement, I find I haven’t written about that… must do so soon. ) In front of the hotel was a low circular stone wall. Horse-drawn…
This post comes with a link to Rain, a music video filmed at Glen Villa and in and around North Hatley, Quebec where I live. The video features Canadian folk singer-songwriter David Francey. As you will hear from his accent, David was born in Scotland and immigrated to Canada as a boy. For some years he…
I’ve been using ornamental grasses for about ten years now, and I’ve used them in various parts of the garden, including at the aqueduct, which I wrote about last week. One of the first places I put them was on the hill that slopes down to the lake. The plants, ordinary miscanthus sinensis, were a…
I don’t know when ornamental grasses began to gain popularity but I’d say that 20-25 years ago, few gardeners used them regularly. Thanks among others to designers like Piet Oudolf from Holland and James van Sweden and Wolfgang Oehme in the U.S., perennial grasses have become popular staples in many gardens. Their fluidity suits a looser, more…
Travelling is wonderful, but nothing beats being at Glen Villa on a perfect autumn day, when the air is clear, the sky is blue and nothing in particular has to be done. This morning I walked around the garden, my first walk-about in three weeks. A few flowers are still blooming, like the never-say-die sedum…
Gardeners in temperate climes may wonder why I love Jeffersonia diphylla. For them it grows easily, spreads nicely and offers a touch of light in a shaded border. A nice plant, but nothing special. Jeffersonia doesn’t grow easily for me. I have to coddle it, and it is one of the few plants at Glen…