flowering quince

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Thank goodness my “desperate measures” are already in place. I’ve been planting early blooming bulbs where the snow melts first for several years. And every time the snow starts to melt, I check all those places for signs of emerging sprouts. Do you want to see what I found during our most recent thaw? It's easier than you think to have flowers blooming sooner than your neighbors.

I actually like keeping records. I can get obsessive about it, and that has gotten me into trouble in the past. So last fall, when I was frantically planting out the plants I had kept in containers--some of them for two years--I left the documenting of that planting for "later," applauding myself for not getting [...]

In case you are just joining in: About two-and-a-half years ago our family moved from our long-time rural home to a different 19th-century farm house about twenty-five minutes from our previous one. I have been renovating the landscape around the house in a non-systematic frenzy and writing about it as time permits. (Previous posts are [...]

This spring has alternated between unseasonably warm and fairly seasonable. The warmth brought the forsythias and daffodils into early bloom, and the returning cool weather kept them looking good for far longer than we had a right to expect. The old garden has cultivated flowers blooming; the new garden has some native plants blooming. I [...]

Spring has finally arrived at Purdville. Unfortunately, I seem to have lost some of my photo gallery features when I switched to this new design. You can click on each thumbnail for a larger image, but then you have to use your browser's Back button to get back to the thumbnails. Also blooming: Creeping phlox [...]