May 2007

Hitch Lyman is a national snowdrop specialist. Of course, the snowdrops are long gone, but doesn't his garden sound wonderful? From the Garden Conservancy website: Enjoy this extraordinary collection of 200 lilac varieties as well as species of peonies, daphnes, and crabapples. The 1848 Greek Revival-style farmhouse was moved to this site in 1990 and [...]

This looked spectacular earlier in May, but the narcissus were already done by the time Gardeners Bloom Day came around. Those orange-cup daffodils were blooming at my neighbor's, between her house and the brook, but too far away from the house to be noticed. I marked them and dug them up and got half for [...]

Yes, I know the Garden Bloggers Bloom Day was yesterday the day before yesterday. I didn't get finished in time. So just pretend this is May 15th, okay? (As always, hover your mouse over any thumbnail for a caption, and click on any photo for a larger image.) Narcissus Let's start off with the narcissus. [...]

Sights One of the many good things about spring is that without it, and without the absence imposed by fall and winter, we flawed mortals might fail to appreciate the beauties around us. So much of the wonder of spring is found in the return of what was absent. Would the appearance of new leaves [...]

I spent my childhood in climates where the flowering dogwood (Cornus florida) flourished, and I loved its elegant simplicity. When we moved here, I was dismayed but not surprised when my new neighbor told me that she had twice planted a flowering dogwood in a protected corner of her house, and twice it had died. [...]

Hello to the members of the Connecticut Horticultural Society who have come to check Cold Climate Gardening out after reading my essay, Defiant Gardening, in their May newsletter.

If you are short on time, energy, and money, but notably the first two, be conservative. You'll be more pleased with one fair-sized, well-composed, well-maintained bed than with a half-dozen large beds that are choked with quack grass and creeping Charlie. That's excellent advice from The Complete Flower Gardener by Karan Davis Cutler and Barbara [...]

In September 2004 I planted 4 different Corydalis bulbs that I had ordered from Odyssey Bulbs. They promised to be exquisite, so I could hardly wait until spring, and started patroling the vicinity as soon as the snow had melted. I especially wanted to see Corydalis bracteata (not offered this year), which owner Russell Stafford [...]

And though one has begun to search for signs of spring almost since January, and to receive them, like postcards sent on a long voyage to home, it is with the greening of the grass that spring has, finally, certainly arrived. It wasn't until I read A Year at North Hill : Four Seasons in [...]