Musings on horticultural therapy and the soothing effects of plants and nature
January in New England does not bring to mind gardening, except to those die-hards impatiently waiting for the first hard melt. These frosty days January is a time where we fanaticize about gardens to come stimulated by the appearance of seed and gardening catalogues in the mail box. For us, it’s Christmas in January with […]
With over three feet of snow in less than a week, there is little time to think about gardening. My wife and I are from the school that likes to make many small trips outside to incrementally shovel rather than waiting for all the snow to fall so that it must be removed in one […]
There was nothing but barberry as far as the eye could see. Dead trees, thick vines, large boulders were scattered around an inhospitable landscape. This is what I have to work with to create a therapeutic space. It should be fun. (I have to admit I’m a bit behind on my writing. Unlike the photo […]
One of the battles that gardeners have with wildlife is over compost. We see our piles as a way to transform plant waste into nutritious compost that will help the next generation of plants grow and be healthy. Wildlife often sees compost piles as a 24/7 diner where they can sample the latest seasonal fare. […]
As most aspects of the garden wind down, cleaning old beds and pulling dead or soon to die plants takes priority this time of year. It has always seemed bittersweet to liberate plants from the soil right after or even during their peak. That was the case a little over a month ago at Green […]
I hadn’t raked leaves at my mother’s house for nearly 35 years. The yard service had done a final cut a few weeks back but since then it seemed as if all the neighboring trees had decided to give their leaves up to my mother’s lawn as a going away gift. Her trees—all oaks—have been […]
We have had the most spectacular autumn in memory. Even to a color-blind boy such as myself the shades of the season have been alarming in their density and variety. Perhaps one of the best things about moving to Connecticut from Long Island is the superior colors of autumn. Long Island has great farms, beaches […]
Though a frost has yet to coat my roof with a thin sheen of white, I know it is coming. Leaves fell in great bunches last week, the hostas have browned up and my lawn has put out that last spurt of growth requiring a final trim. I’ve been building an increasing amount of fires […]
The advent of autumn has always been bittersweet as the seasonal burst of a multifaceted patina of foliage is counterbalanced by the sad brown and gray death of its aftermath. I was in between these worlds this weekend as the first of a weekly raking regime started. I’ve always enjoyed raking as it is a […]
It was a dark and stormy night . . . Or at least it was incredibly windy as the porch light illuminated a rain of leaves being blown about like flat slices of snow during a blizzard. It seemed as if the peak of leaf season and their escape from perches high on maples, birches, […]