Although I am not usually a “resolutions” kind of gal, I figured for 2012 I could at least put a smidge of thought into what I could try to do better in the garden in 2012.

My biggest resolution ought to be SAVING: wether time or money, (both seriously need attention here), I need to have a plan. First, I will try to recycle as many seed and plant catalogues as soon as I go through them. In the depths of winter they become my sustenence and my sanity as the gray takes over the skies for weeks at a time and my mood plummets with the temperatures. By the middle of February, when the garden here is at it’s bleakest, there will be a stack of them full of post-its and circles and notations and in my weakest moments the orders will start flying out via computer and snail mail. This year I am at the ready with a fresh yellow legal pad( my go-to for all writing) where I will carefully track the few seeds and plants I NEED (note the verb) and try to order as many of those from one or two vendors to also save postage and the inevitable wandering eye once I log on to their beautiful websites.

As for time, I know I have to re-work the area around the new shed, but other than that I am calling a moratorium on new garden beds . There are 4 large gardens here and half a dozen smaller ones and that is enough to keep any sane person busy and content.

No dreams of the mythic and unattainable “white garden” I plan every year ,

no dedicated herb garden ( Idon’t even cook so what the heck do I even think I want it for??), and

absolutely NO sneaky garden tricks like saying I am just re-edging when I am really excavating 20 more square feet for new plants. And this time I mean it. Really. Honestly. Cross my heart .

On the positive side of my resolutions, I am going to visit as many other gardens, both public and private, as I can.

I am going to work harder at starting things successfully from seed,

and last but by no means least, I am going to write more and finish  the project I have been promising Bill (and myself) will be done soon for the past 3 years.

That ought to do it for me…..what resolutions for the garden are you planning for 2012?

I hope you have all forgiven me for last year when my Dear Santa letter included the wish for lots and lots of snow.  Santa loves me and wants me to be happy, so he obliged and sent us over 100 inches . Snow, that as those around me recall, never melted, just accumulated until roofs came crashing in and the towns were forced to bring in heavy equipment to re-locate truckloads of it when there was no place left to safely plow it. I shall try to be more careful this year.

Dear Santa,

Having tried my best to be well behaved without being downright boring, I am hoping you will once again grant me a few gardening related gifts.

First, a shed would be nice. In late September Bill and I finally took the plunge and went to the shed store and parted with an obscene amount of money for a lovely and functional red shed. As the delivery date approached it occured to Bill that no one had ever asked us if there was an access to our location that a very large very wide shed could pass, and turns out…there is not. Good catch Bill.

I called said shed company, who were properly horrified at their oversight and promised a partially assembled shed delivery and the carpenters to assemble it would be here promptly. We are still waiting. Phone calls to said shed company yield cheerful messages that shed is on its way ! delivery surely next week! etc etc. The last call provided the information that the shed will be here Tuesday and assembled Wednesday..no wait it will be here Wednesday and assembled Thursday… just to be sure Mrs. Monroe you should call me again Monday.

Enough already. Shed please.

I would also like an arborist with morals. The last two we had come to the property to discuss storm damage quoted us rates that are so ridiculously high they are laughable , or so ridicuously laughable they must be high…whichever you prefer.  Please find me one who does not think his services rank with those of a surgeon or CEO.

If you can spare them , I could use a few elves (after christmas of course , I know you are in need of them for your crunch time) to help with clean-up this year. Despite the unseasonably warm weather, I did not find the time to cut back the gardens  and smiley singing elves would be just the motivation I need to get out there with the clippers and finish.

Speaking of clippers, I lost my Felcos (again) and nothing would make me happier than a new pair in my stocking.

I will say my last wish quietly so the others will not hear… I would like lots and lots of snow…ssshhh…. don’t tell anyone I asked, they will be mad. I love snow cover and the sheer joy of finding so many happy protected plants that survived our long winter. One hundred inches of insulation insured that last year ALL of my hydrangeas bloomed and for that I can’t thank you enough.

As usual cookies will be next to the fireplace and my stocking is the one with the snowmen on it 😉

Love and Peace

and Merry Christmas,

Cheryl

It is Thanksgiving week  and I gather from all the Facebook postings ,tweets and blogs that it is mandatory to post a lists of what you are thankful for in your little corner of the world.  Ok, I’m on it.

First, in a very serious way, I am thankful that I have a finanancial backer in this enterprise called “Garden” that makes it possible for me to plant to my heart’s content, take as many classes as I want, and who even bankrolled my adventure in speaking via his purchase of shiny new laptop and projector. His generosity astounds, especially given my carping and whining.

Less seriously I think he has ulterior motives: namely to get me out of his hair .But that is ok, motive in this case does not matter. So Thank You # 1 goes to Bill. Thanks Bill.

The rest of the list ,in no particular order

I am thankful I garden where there are  4 seasons. Ever changing weather, ever changing interest in the garden, and a nice long winter break to curl up and read beautiful plant catalogues and picture books.

Picture books are on the list too! I lam thankful for  fancy photography books, garden primers, design books, and gardening magazines. Being that I was born in the wrong country ( and frankly the wrong year as well), my favorite publications are Gardens Illustrated and The English Garden. By golly I will have Sissinghurst here if it kills me, I just gotta get Bill to finance some castle wall building 🙂

My favorite discovery this year is an annual publication called International Garden Photographer of the Year, I have been checking out all the back issues of this glorious book from the library, but the results can be seen online as well. Ah-mazing!

I am thankful that our new neighbor has a rabbit hunting outdoor cat..I am sure it will soon go the way of the other outdoor cats who have hunted here before as this is coyote territory, so I must be thankful quickly while there is still time.

I am extremely thankful, and grateful to all the knowledgeable, generous, and kind gardeners I have met in the Master Gardener group I belong to, at events when I am speaking, and on the web. I have learned so much from interacting with you, reading your books and blogs, and gardening side by side with you.

I am thankful for pie. This has zilch to do with gardening, but to me Thanksgiving is about the pie. Most years I skip the turkey altogether , I can have that any old day. Just name another day on which sideboard in the dinning room is heavliy laden with pies of so very many varieties…you can’t…there is no other such day. So pie gets on the list.

I am thankful I am lucky enough to have something as beautiful as a rose in my garden . Sometimes a rose is all you need to make you feel everything is right with the world.

and on other non- gardening fronts, I am of course thankful for my family and the blessing that surrounds Faith Anne. I hope you all have a very loooong list of your own to ponder this holiday.

Peace and Happy Thanksgiving

I love the fact that despite getting whacked…and whacked hard..by several early winter storms, my sheffield daisies are still blooming their fool heads off.

 Maybe their view of and to  the world is a little different this year, but I don’t mind if they don’t.

‘Major Wheeler’ honeysuckle is following suit, happily sending out new red flowers daily.

I also adore the colors hues of the various sedums in the fall. here are three that are close to my door

 (it is blustery today and I am feeling icky and not willing to venture out to take more pictures 🙁  )

I am choosing to ignore the rest of the cleanup that needs to get done outside and instead shall head out shopping and to the movies, then hope to curl up and knit drinking hot cocoa laced with Baileys later on. Enjoy your day!

As I assess the garden this year, and decide which plants performed well and thus get to stay, and which made me grimace in frustration and shall be composted, I am drawn into thinking about the warped psyches of oh so many gardeners .

Everyone who turns a spade in the ground and attempts to beautify their little piece of heaven is always on the lookout for plants that will enhance their space with minimal upkeep (for the most part as I do not discount those who seek out plant growing challenges and take them on full throttle 😉  )Therefore, plant breeders and hobbyists are always working toward giving us low maintenance, disease resistant and long blooming perennials and shrubs to satisfy our ever growing list of demands. 

It is really hard to have a garden bloom successively successfully (say THAT three times fast!). It takes effort to either prevent or cure plant fungal issues and other problems, be they pathological or cultural. It also takes effort to rip the little suckers out and replace them in a fit of anger when they will not behave for you.

So along comes plant breeder who give us a nicely structured plant, branched from top to bottom, good rounded form, no pruning necessary. said plant blooms it’s head off from the end of May through several frosts (and even snowfalls here in the snow belt)  and does not EVER require deadheading. It needs no winter protection, gets no foliar spots or other disfigurement. And yet all I hear is whining.

In case you are wondering , I am referrring to the Knockout Rose series, and now it’s little brother, the Drift. Unlike many remontant (reblooming) roses, it has no rest in between blooms, it just keeps on keepin on all season. Although I get some black spot on many of my resistant varieties I never see it on my Knockouts. I can cut roses from them for arrangements all season long.

Yet they complaints fly…they don’t look like my glorious heavily petaled Abe Lincoln…….they don’t have any fragrance…hybrid teas are the REAL roses…and on and on….Really???

This is where I think people are funny, and I mean funny- strange not funny -ha-ha. The knockouts aren’t meant to be a fussy hybrid tea- that by the way looks leggy and spotty and the blooms are it’s only saving grace. They are meant to be great garden plants that require no spraying or for that matter any work at all to give you a smile in the form of a rose every time you walk by. They are fragrant if you purchase the right ones (double pink has sweetly scented blooms and the yellow has clove- like scented bracts) and they add so much to your garden while asking so little. Give the people what they want…and they will bite your hand off.

In November I can count on my late mums (sheffield and copper penny) , two other roses (The Fairy and Magic Carpet) and my Knockouts to still be blooming here. That says a lot given that by then we have had several frosts, probably snow, and they have been in bloom since late May. All the other roses are  done, and lots of them get black spot in late fall so I was all too happy to see them de-foliate and disappear.

So in honor of what is usually Garden Bloggers Bloom Day (the 15thof every month)..  I give you roses…..( Red Knockout, Double Pink KO, and Sweet Drift) 

It was with a heavy heart that  I took a full walk around the property this afternoon. The snow is pretty deep and it is hard to predict the extent of the damage, but what I could see was not good.

Our biggest tree, a maple I planted almost upon arrival here in 1989, is pretty much toast. Huge branches , including all those from the very top of the tree not only broke off, but stripped the bark down large sections of the trunk as they fell.

The boys and I cut off what we could yesterday, but for  the rest we  need ladders, and there is too much snow for that.

My ‘Mrs.Robinson’ crabapple, all loaded with winter fruit took a big hit, as did the magnolia and two pear trees. A third out back is now just a trunk.

The white pines, very suseptible to winter damage anyway, are broken and twisted.

The ninebark and forsythia,, the first over 10 ft tall, the latter about 15 are still buried.

And the stacks of branches are starting to pile up. 

Yesterday we went out in the cold for as long as we could (we had no power or heat to come back in to) and shook lots of bushes and limbs to free them from the  heavy  wet snow and see if they would  perk back up. Some we had success with, some, not so much.

Once the snow melts and we clear the paths of debris, I will be able to prune some things back into shape, or tie some things up as in the case of the arborvitae. Usually in winter, lots of these are tied or protected somehow ( the boxwood too but no one had gotten to that yet. It was still early fall, and a lovely warm one at that.

A lesson learned, both the concolor firs and the corylus ‘contorta’ were left unscathed, their branches fully able to bear the weight and shake it off.

All over the place roads are still blocked by downed limbs  and trees are still precariously balance on power lines. It is scary to drive under them, I duck out of reflex every time.

We have power back on, so tommorow I will head out to start some of the cleanup. Looks like the chipper will be working overtime, and the hobo fire barrel will be cranking in January.

Sigh.

I had just started to head outside into the garden in the past few day to take some photos of the foliage that was starting to turn…lots of things were still very green and there were cheerful mums, many roses and even two clematis in bloom. This garden was still rockin some serious fall beauty until last night. All day yesterday it rained, cold , raw depressing rain. As the drops were falling, so were the temperatures and the meteorologists were warning those of us in high elevations that we would see snow. They called it right (for once in a very long time) , and we got snow, but first sleet and freezing rain from which the garden will not recover. Well then. I guess you can call this season done. Darn.

But, it  is beautiful out there. Now that my hands have regained their feeling ( it is 27 degrees out there) I can show you some pics of the destruction.As always..click to embiggen. 🙂

 Going through and cleaning up the photo files after a busy year here in the Burrow.Found lots of keepers that really will help me improve many of the plantings, as well as some that I just like for the photos themselves.

 This one falls into the second category… Why do I love this photo?

 Because in this very blooming garden, where from March to November you can find color everywhere…..

 in this photo…… there is nothing but green. Crazy. Just look at all the shades, very cool.

                                             This ranks as a favorite too, because it is the very defininition of “bloom where you’re planted” …which is just darn good advice.

 This one is sweet

                                                                                                                                                                    and this one has great color.

                                                                                                                                   And this one makes winter seem peaceful and wonderful.

                                                                                                                                                          Amazing how photos can do that.

go over to www.gardeninggonewild.com to see some great photography by Saxon Holt, as well as many fellow bloggers whose photographs puts my humble “pictures” to shame.



It is wind down time here in the Burrow, leaves are starting to change and the weather is offering up nice cool nights even though the days are still unseasonably warm.

Although there is less in bloom, a garden walk is still a delight given the clear, crisp air today (after more deluge yesterday) and the beautiful fall sunlight.

Laziness reigns, and we have still yet to put away all the pool furniture and toys, the garage is a MESS and the shed arrival will be delayed another 6 weeks (this due to the fact that it never occured to us when we ordered it that after the fence went in and the gardens that followed it last year , there is no way to access our yard with heavy equipment anymore. Feeling like a total idiot, I had to call the shed company and instead have it arranged to be built on site. Sigh). We were going to tackle some of that today, but that remains to be seen.

I did manage to get a few things cut back that looked particulary hideous and planted some bulbs (snowdrops, crocus -or as I like to call it here”chipmunk snacks”, species tulips and allium). While out there I also managed to break the bolt on the wheelbarrow AND give it a flat tire, so I need to  add fixing that to the to-do list as well.

Instead of wallowing in overwhelmingly depressing work loads, lets look at some pictures!

Lots of roses are still flowering, the mums look spectacular, many annuals are still strutting their stuff, and lots of foliage is turning .

I just love how the white roses (sea foam and magic carpet have such a pronounced blush of pink on them in the fall,  and especially love how no hard frost has knocked them down yet.

I am off to enjoy the day, and hope you are too!