tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-121570912009-07-06T12:24:13.992-07:00EALhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03339266900036592543noreply@blogger.comBlogger402125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12157091.post-78802372079905428392009-07-03T22:51:00.001-07:002009-07-03T22:54:33.409-07:00

Should look like this as far as I’m concerned. Or this. Or any other configuration that ‘s interesting and abundant rather than pinched and pedicured. That’s what I’m celebrating on this glorious 4th of July weekend.I am thankful that I did not inherit a front lawn from the former owners of our property. Or a back lawn. Or, indeed, a pitiful little strip of side lawn. What I got wasn’t perfect,

EALhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03339266900036592543noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12157091.post-74553515377912619572009-06-30T16:26:00.000-07:002009-06-30T16:35:01.753-07:00

Now is the time when the early summer garden starts to harden into the midsummer garden. Fewer if any new plants are emerging and the fresh lush look of the garden begins to dissipate just a bit. Sure, there is plenty to look forward to in the way of flowers, but for the most part all the plants are out. I no longer have to worry about squashing a baby coreopsis or vebena bonariensis as I thread

EALhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03339266900036592543noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12157091.post-2062630216387211152009-06-25T06:20:00.000-07:002009-06-25T06:32:44.597-07:00

Jim/Art of Gardening and I have been discussing the timing of our garden bloggers’ get-together in Buffalo in 2010. Should it be during the actual weekend of Garden Walk Buffalo, or not? On the one hand, it would be glorious for all you bloggers to see Garden Walk in action—and you would have access to all the 300plus gardens. It is a very exciting weekend in Buffalo. We would likely include all

EALhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03339266900036592543noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12157091.post-91488219356905578092009-06-23T17:56:00.000-07:002009-06-23T18:07:43.664-07:00

One is a first I have every year, but with a twist. The other is a first I have never had since I started gardening. Every June, I hail the first of the martagon lilium. There is a nice clump still in bud in the usual side bed, but last fall I also planted some Mrs. Blackhouse (lured by end-of-season sales at Old House Gardens!) in the front hosta beds. Sure enough, here is one coming up right

EALhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03339266900036592543noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12157091.post-79526283626650487702009-06-21T18:07:00.000-07:002009-06-23T04:06:35.560-07:00

Hey, thanks Gardening Gone Wild, for giving me something to post about. There is a great early summer garden in progress here, but with no big developments over the past week or so. I thought I’d said pretty much all I had to say about roses this year, but along comes GGW with a rose photo contest. Of course I have no expectation of winning, but I do have ideas about photographing roses and I

EALhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03339266900036592543noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12157091.post-54471122404355220722009-06-19T18:50:00.000-07:002009-06-19T18:56:37.602-07:00

There are quite a number of plants I’ve let die on purpose, but neglecting plants doesn’t quite have the same effect as neglecting buildings. Those you can count on to fall to bits if you don’t maintain them. Plants will thrive in spite of you. I’ve lamented and dissected my love/hate affair with roses over and over here—but it is June, it is rose season, and after I’m done you won’t be hearing

EALhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03339266900036592543noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12157091.post-46496717066080533352009-06-15T05:00:00.000-07:002009-06-15T05:00:02.396-07:00

Though my garden is primed to peak in mid–late July, just in time for Garden Walk, I do have a few noteworthy happenings before then. Not that many, because aside from spring bulbs, ephemerals, and early-blooming perennials, gardens are just getting going in June when you live around here.I think the viburnum blooms are the first sign that things are really beginning to happen. Then the hardy

EALhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03339266900036592543noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12157091.post-4990368543075116182009-06-14T19:32:00.000-07:002009-06-14T19:41:11.582-07:00

It’s one thing to have a few unplanted purchases sitting around; I think we all have them. I know I usually have some throughout the gardening season; indeed, there are 6-8 skillfully tucked away pots in my garden as I write this.But today I took care of a much worse area of denial. Last year, I ignored, as I generally do, the horrible weed beds behind our house. I look at this every time I pull

EALhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03339266900036592543noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12157091.post-38768361707188041032009-06-07T18:46:00.000-07:002009-06-07T18:56:02.689-07:00

How can this be? It’s barely a week since I planted up most of my containers and everything was just beginning to shoot up. Now the lilies are leaning every which way, the weeds are waste-high, and the roses are starting to bloom. It must have all happened while I was in Chicago.In fact, I’ve already carelessly snapped off a couple lily tops that were in the way. Oops! Now those are useless for

EALhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03339266900036592543noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12157091.post-62497495149210041282009-06-02T19:24:00.001-07:002009-06-03T11:49:55.964-07:00

Hard to decide what was most impressive about last weekend’s garden blogger’s meet-up in Chicago. About 50 bloggers were in attendance, including many who might be reading this, so I won’t go heavily into details—others have reported on the events before me.Suffice it to say that we visited several amazing public gardens, including the Botanic, Lurie Gardens, Lincoln Park, and the LP conservatory

EALhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03339266900036592543noreply@blogger.com29tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12157091.post-42887220222914015902009-05-22T08:16:00.001-07:002009-05-22T08:20:10.793-07:00

It seems like this vine, which has been blooming in small increments for the past 3 years, has finally hit its stride. Full disclosure: from where I sit in the garden, it really looks more like this:But I can see that more blooms are coming on the shadier patio side and I think it will get more floriferous there. They will take longer to come, but thanks to the shade they will also last longer (

EALhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03339266900036592543noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12157091.post-74238425779429119922009-05-16T18:34:00.000-07:002009-05-16T19:22:38.780-07:00

It doesn’t seem right to discuss flowers and Bloom Day without mentioning what’s been growing and blooming in the Show House garden. I’ve enjoyed watching our temporary garden develop as the trees, shrubs, and perennials get bigger and come into flower. Even the veggies are flowering—which isn’t supposed to happen—but they look pretty. Those we’ll keep and hopefully whomever gets them will whip

EALhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03339266900036592543noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12157091.post-73400027853513380002009-05-16T16:19:00.001-07:002009-05-16T16:32:50.102-07:00

It has been tulip season on the GWI property, as this post demonstrates. But there are many other longstanding stalwarts of the spring garden that have been providing pleasure over the past weeks. I bought this pulmonaria last year, and have been steadily adding spring-blooming perennials with good foliage to shady spots (as I remove pachysandra). It’s in a bed with hellebores, astilbe, hosta,

EALhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03339266900036592543noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12157091.post-31270574127158780842009-05-08T20:51:00.000-07:002009-05-08T20:55:49.062-07:00

At least as far as my property is concerned. When the Norway maples fully leaf out, that’s it for the front (grassless) yard. And that’s why I go nuts with tulips at this time of year, and why I am happy to treat hybrid tulips as annuals. May is the only month that I can have a semi-colorful front garden. But that’s probably the best, because tulips should be a front garden type of flower. I grow

EALhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03339266900036592543noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12157091.post-18826858549434928272009-05-02T12:03:00.000-07:002009-05-02T12:45:53.088-07:00

Actually there were only eight of us, so we just managed the east end of Allentown’s main business street. It starts with a corner garden (of sorts) that has a large expanse of grass, a few trees, a cement/tile triangular planter, a walkway, and a shelter in the form of a hyperbolic paraboloid. It’s a neat little space, though many feel a building should be there. Here's a better image of the

EALhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03339266900036592543noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12157091.post-21407294628842571362009-04-28T09:19:00.000-07:002009-04-28T09:30:51.457-07:00

Thanks to the hard work—I suspect blood, sweat, and tears were all involved—of WNY landscape architect Joy Keubler and her team—our Show House garden is completed on schedule and can be viewed through May 17 along with the rest of the 30-plus room mansion. As I posted here, the idea was to do sort of a demonstration garden, one that includes composting, vegetable-growing, rain barrel-using, and

EALhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03339266900036592543noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12157091.post-78177365374663186462009-04-25T13:38:00.000-07:002009-04-25T22:18:06.889-07:00

It’s hard to believe I ignored these when I first saw them in a catalog many years ago. Back then, I wanted the big Darwin hybrids or some other showier variety of tulip. These days, it’s the opposite; I’m buying more species tulip and fewer hybrids. (Though most of these “species” are actually cultivars of wild tulips.)It’s important to remember how small these are, though. I find that they only

EALhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03339266900036592543noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12157091.post-91793336657212212472009-04-19T11:51:00.000-07:002009-04-19T11:57:31.004-07:00

Certain plants seem right at home in Western New York gardens. Some of them I grow and like, but don’t get too excited about: hostas, daylilies, rudbeckia, echinacea. Some I feel happy about growing as successfully as I do: lilium, species tulips, clematis, David Austin roses. And then there are plants that truly surprise and delight me every season. Such a plant is the helleborus, which I first

EALhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03339266900036592543noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12157091.post-24058749983788820192009-04-15T06:53:00.001-07:002009-04-15T07:37:03.226-07:00

Aha! I thought this was sort of a weird in-between time for my garden. After scanning both this blog and Garden Rant, I see that I barely posted for Bloom Day last April, just flinging up a hellebore image (and those have been blooming for a few weeks). However, there is more happening than just hellebores, though it’s not terribly exciting. The scilla are multiplying in the front beds, the new

EALhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03339266900036592543noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12157091.post-40318726892329724222009-04-11T13:56:00.001-07:002009-04-11T14:00:36.404-07:00

That’s what pansies are in my garden. They look good for a few weeks, and then get all leggy, stop producing blooms, or simply die. Yet, I keep buying them (right, definition of insanity). This year my plan is to plant them out very early, which is now. Daffodils are only beginning to pop in our area, as you see above. I figure I’ll get the most out of them before the trees fully leaf out. They

EALhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03339266900036592543noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12157091.post-78247147168760494402009-04-05T21:33:00.001-07:002009-04-05T21:52:51.719-07:00

This is an impatient and frustrating time for many gardeners throughout the Northeast and Midwest; I am reading it and feeling it. Indeed, I still see some gardens under a stubborn coating of snow. We haven't got that, but aside from a healthy showing from the hellebores, I wouldn’t say there’s too much going on in the way of flowers yet—and I would hardly expect it.But it is the home stretch.

EALhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03339266900036592543noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12157091.post-68455344717377383792009-03-30T16:36:00.001-07:002009-03-30T16:45:27.870-07:00

How many of you have love/hate affairs with your local garden shows? We are lucky enough to have a garden-only show (as opposed to our other home & garden one, which is really deadly), but our show could be so much better! I go every year, because there are always things to see and possibly buy, no matter what, but this year more than other years, I was shocked by the disconnect between what the

EALhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03339266900036592543noreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12157091.post-4864160767916178732009-03-27T13:48:00.000-07:002009-03-27T13:58:28.908-07:00

It was warm enough today (mid-fifties perhaps) to sit outside on the back steps for a while. They get warmed up by the sun during the early afternoon and are very comfortable by 3 p.m. or so. After 5, I need to move to the side steps, as the sun has switched over there by then. There really isn’t much to do in the garden at this stage. The bulb watch has begun, and I can see all of the tulip

EALhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03339266900036592543noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12157091.post-28178898746675706102009-03-24T18:58:00.000-07:002009-03-24T19:21:09.892-07:00

You can look it up here. According to the wiki entry, “March is typically marked by sudden storms with heavy rains and strong winds that cause flooding in many places around the city.” In Rio, that is. According to the song. In Buffalo, it’s somewhat similar. We have some rain, it’s chilly, and often it’s windy. In North Dakota, they are having a real taste of the waters of March.But at the end

EALhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03339266900036592543noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12157091.post-85106673374243793412009-03-22T09:51:00.001-07:002009-03-22T09:54:37.930-07:00

Many of my fellow bloggers in the lower zones are writing about their early spring gardening efforts. They’re cleaning up, clearing out, mulching, creating new beds, and so on. (It’s a bit early for planting.)However, you will be reading of no such efforts on this site, at least not for a few weeks. That’s because I do not garden if it’s under 50 degrees out. If I have to wear a winter coat, that

EALhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03339266900036592543noreply@blogger.com13