Musings on horticultural therapy and the soothing effects of plants and nature
For a variety of reasons, I wasn’t able to spend that much time this summer at Green Chimneys so it’s been good to return on a regular basis and work with a new crop of children. Of my old charges, only one is a repeat, which is bittersweet as I miss my former students while […]
I was not a good blogger in August opting to rest and harvest my labors rather than write about them. For every post I did not write, I harvested a huge crop of something. First it was zucchinis, which grow in quick succession. My wife hated them as I pulled at least two a day […]
It has been a toasty and dry summer on the East Coast, with nary a drop of rain from the sky to my yard in weeks. Thunderstorms roll through on a regular basis but it seems as if an invisible umbrella extends over my property as they hint of but never deliver water. Unlike last […]
It has been nearly 11 months since the installation of a new septic field “altered” my yard necessitating a rethinking and landscaping of a good chunk of our property. Remarkably it has emerged more lovely than we could have expected. New beds now holding blueberry and blackberry bushes are maturing, the asters and flowering quinces […]
As I ranted before, I had a disagreement with one of our friendly groundhogs. He thought it was fine to eat through my gate and garden whereas I thought differently. There was no way to stop it from entering my grounds because for every hole I filled with rocks and dirt, another was dug. Unless […]
Each time I place either a seed or a plant into the ground, it is with the hope that something wonderful will happen. Or at the very least I will get a response in the affirmative. For me seeds continue to be a mystery as when you plant a plant (rather than a seed) all […]
“What?! They got the whole shipment. l want that son-of-a-bitch dead! We’re trying to locate… What am l, alone in this world? Did l ask you what you’re tryin’ to do? l want you to get this %$#@ where he breathes! l want Eliot Ness dead! l want his family dead, his house burnt to […]
Even though it seemed early, the lower stalks of my garlic were turning brown with the tips in full shrivel. I shouldn’t have been surprised as a few weeks ago had we started to cut garlic scapes that would be added to salads and stir-fry dishes. With a very delicate flavor and texture, their inclusion […]
While most of the tourists in Washington D.C. go to places like the Air & Space or Holocaust Museums, we spent much of our spare time last weekend at the National Arboretum and Botanic Garden. As the weather was hot and thick with humidity, the opportunity to spend some reflective time walking among tropical trees, […]
I stopped writing about my fledgling lawn as the grip of winter ceased its growth. It’s been a long haul over the past 8 months since the first bits grass were planted. To recap, over two-thirds of the property that I garden was torn up last August when a new septic system was installed. The […]