Last week I advised myself not to set overly ambitious garden goals for 2020. I must have been under the weather. This week, I’m back to normal, aiming to accomplish most of the goals I set myself even while acknowledging that doing that will mostly likely be impossible. Although I set six goals for the year, I made…
This winter feels interminable. Surely in earlier years daffodils have been blooming by now, snowdrops long gone. Well, no. It’s true that in some years snowdrops have appeared by this date. Crocus have bloomed. Pulmonaria have added their touch of colour. But it is also true that this April…
March is not leaving like a lamb. Lake Massawippi is still frozen solid, snow still covers the ground and today the wind is blowing fiercely. These unusually late winter conditions are discouraging, to say the least. But on the up side, they are giving me time to review some of the blogs I’ve written since I…
Last week my computer went on the blink and for three whole days, my typing fingers had a rest. The days off-line gave me time to do other things, but instead of using the time wisely, I wandered around feeling bereft. So it was only yesterday, when all was once again well on the computer front, that I…
It’s garden visit time at Glen Villa. Last week a group from Quebec City visited the garden; this week it’s a group from Ontario and the following week it’s another group from Quebec. Then, on August 4, comes the big Open Garden Day when we could realistically have 500 people or more. I think all…
The Skating Pond was an accident. I didn’t set out to make a pond, for skating or anything else. But that’s what happened. The genesis for the project was an old covered bridge that played a part in my husband’s boyhood. In 2001 vandals burned it down. Seeing the remains, my husband felt as if he’d…
Don’t you hate reminding yourself of resolutions made and forgotten? Yesterday, as a gloomy December began, I re-read a blog post I wrote in January. I was looking ahead then to what I wanted to accomplish in 2014. There were loose ends I planned to tie up, and new projects I hoped to start. I’m sad to say…
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…
People say that a first blog post should start with a statement of principle, something that lets people know what the blog will be about. I’m not sure how this blog will evolve. I know I want to write about my garden, Glen Villa, and about how it got to be what it is. I…