Jan 30
Wind, like the mythical and elusive town of Brigadoon, appears only occasionally, and when it does, magic happens. Nothing celebrates that magic element like tall grasses.
Grasses also can provide privacy as they do for this firepit by the water, and they come in all sizes and can even grow in the shade like Hakone grass, also known as Japanese forest grass.
Mar 09
Garden is about growing and beauty, but so much of life is also filled with sadness. In the Berkshires where I live, two people who made the world a better and more beautiful place recently died.
Sanjiban Sellew, a filmmaker and so much more, died because cancer still has the last word. His short films Road Kill Revival http://www.sanjibanfilms.com/flash8/roadkill.html and Animal Tricks, make you laugh despite the sadness you feel. Brain cancer ended his life, but certainly not his spirit!
Moira Banks-Dobson, who I did not know, but all who did know her speak of her beauty – inside and out – died because the courts, the “justice system’, did not do their job. They, over and over again, in fact seven times and counting, let a drunkin drive go free. Free to kill.
I didn’t create this Blog to rant, but as I think of these two people, and the politics today in so many areas including the need to control women’s lives, make me feel like shouting, ” How dare they? Have they no sense of decency!”
Feb 24
One day the air brims with geese Vs returning, damp warming soil aromas, and tufted titmouse birds performing mating calls.
The next day, heavy, gray/white snow, somber, quiet stillness, and chilly, wet intruding cold.
As my hubby would say, “Just like real life.”
Yet, given our lack of snow and rain of late, mercifully, you can almost feel the plants soaking up the moisture, bird baths and rain barrels filling to their tops, and hammelis ‘Arnold’s Promise’ yellow flowers remind you the warm weather show has just begun.
Feb 24
Luscious Spinach
Fresh greens for dinner.
What a wonderful phrase to use in the winter…
An additional coldframe gift means earlier planting and eating of tomatoes and other more tender veggies.
I’d like to write more, but I’ve got to pick the spinach for dinner…
Aug 02
Zone 5 can finally have a lace cap
This summer I’ve had many new clients from whom I have learned much. One client wanted a predominantly blue garden. My research led me to “Twist-N-Shout, a blue lace cap hydrangea for zone 5. Just looking at it makes this crazy world in which we are living disappear. Another client had recently purchased a home whose former owner made it big and bulky. Thanks to a Nishki willow, a very large Montgomery spruce, a Japanese Maple, Japanese irises, and of course, Twist-N-Shout and more, the house has softened and the owner is so pleased.
Plants heal us and can even heal bad designs.
May 02
Buy it!
Karen Shreefter Landscape Design’s Favorite Tool!
Hori Hori – Japanese Farmer’s Knife
It will dig out most weeds; it’s great for dividing plants, and even planting plants; and it will slice fingers (I know from experience).
Mar 29
Hamamelis `Arnold's Promise'
The grey/brown got to me today.
So I kept peeking at the yellow flowers of Hamamelis or spring witch hazel (cultivar Arnold’s Promise), and decided to take the plant at its word.
And, just to be on the save side, I’m off to the south to see colors.
Mar 15
Japan, a wounded beauty
I gardened today to ease my worry and sorrow about Japan’s tragedy. It didn’t help. When I saw the moss I have been cultivating, I remembered the moss gardens in Kyoto that brought such calm.
When I used my Japanese tools, I ached, worrying about my almost Japanese cousin Hiromi, who brought them to me as gifts. I think about her parents who still giggle, waking Hiromi in the morning with their merriment. Chris and I were supposed to travel to Japan on April 3 for Hiromi’s wedding to my cousin. Hiromi, though 20 years younger than I, feels like my older sister; she, like Japanese gardens, provides beauty, grounding, and nurturing to all she touches. For me she symbolizes Japan. I cannot fathom, nor do I want to imagine such a beautiful country and people seeing their world destroyed.
Mar 11
Peeking daffs
Good news!
My daffodils are 3 inches up and Ladies Mantle has begun to show green.
Bad news¡
I did my first weeding today.
News I can’t yet face.
Many branches of my new mountain laurels were broken by the winter.
Mar 08
Minute, but glorious white slips of snowdrops
Chris and I went to NYC where there was no snow. He had never been to the Cloisters so off we went, and in one of their gardens, I saw snowdrops – not in the sky, but growing at the base of a very old espaliered pear tree, and then nearby, surrounding quince trees. I must return in spring.
Dreading the return to Berkshire winter, I had the thrill and surprise of seeing my fall-planted spinach when I removed snow cover from my cold frame. The delight of snow’s striptease.