Musings on horticultural therapy and the soothing effects of plants and nature
With the rain finally breaking and my knee on the mend, Juana, Olivia and I start to harvest the remaining tomatoes. All the plants have started to shrivel and the fruits are green with little prospect of changing color in this cooling month. Olivia decides to help herself to the basket of ripe, red cherry […]
Montauk daisies (Nipponanthemum nipponicum) are one of my favorite Autumn flowers. It is neither a daisy nor a chrysanthemum and has gorgeous blooms until the first hard frost. I first encountered it decades ago along the beaches of Long Island where I grew up. Once I found it, I had to have at least a […]
October’s cooling temperatures and fading vegetation represent the last breath of Mother Nature’s colorful splendor before dormancy takes over. The sun is accelerating its drop in the sky, casting long and a lasting shadows. Animals ready themselves for the cold months ahead by collecting nuts and other foods frantically. Gardeners and farmers, too, pick up […]
It’s a cloudy, cool day in Connecticut. Perfect for the first fire of the season. In anticipation of this day, Juana and I gathered branches of varying sizes a few weeks back, storing them in two old plastic milk crates for starter. There is a cord of well-seasoned wood stacked and covered on the property, […]
The sky is filled with migrating Vs of Canadian geese. Some are too high to discern their honking refrain, but others are low enough to perceive their song. It is too early for us to migrate South as yard clean up, holidays and inertia keep us put for at least the time being. But there […]
Beautyberry is one of my favorite autumn berry bushes (and one of the few to sport fruit this year). Its brightly colored berries persist through the season and are yet another of Nature’s late year bird feeders. Because of my location, I am not able to grow the Native American variety but its Japanese counterpart […]
It’s in between seasons and a pending surgery on my knee affords me the opportunity to observe and contemplate more than is typical in the garden. Walking around the property, crutch in arm, I take a close look at a rhododendron that is suffering no doubt to the lack of rain. I will need to […]
I think this will be a tough Winter for the wildlife that frequents our gardens. The hummingbird feeder needs replenishment more frequently than is typical. Chickadees fight for space on the thistle feeder, which we have just put out for the migrating goldfinches and pine siskins. The goldfinches attack, pecking the Swiss chard, whose leaves […]
With the first day of autumn comes the changing of the seasonal pictures in our kitchen. A quartet of heads, each representing a different season, gets readjusted. These whimsical portraits were created by Italian master, Giuseppe Arcimboldo, who is well known for his use of fruits and vegetables to create distinctive images. Old man autumn […]
In a few days, Autumn will arrive but new and familiar flowers continue to surprise. The latest additions are autumn crocuses that emerged over the weekend next to the lupines I seeded a year ago. Their unusually large form, emerging from the ground with a white stem transforming into light, blue petals seems so ephemeral. […]