I think one of the best things about January is getting to flip through the blank pages in a crisp new calendar and writing in the stuff of life. (Yes, I’m easily amused.) I like to write things like “fly to Paris”, “sunny, warm - bees are out”, and “Bonsai workshop 10:30-12″. Blithewold members, did you get your winter flyer of education programs and events? Have you filled in your calendar? (–Have you registered for classes?) Those of you who aren’t members, don’t you wish you were? click here for a special deal and just for kicks, check out what we’re offering this winter and see if you’re inspired to fill in a page -or 9- in your calendar too.

The first to do is the Owl Prowl - sure to be a hoot and a half (am I easily amusing too?) the evening of January 23. There’s nothing like the sound of an owl - and to get to see a real Hedwig winging over Blithewold would be amazing. Fred Orwiler, former director of education at the Norman Bird Sanctuary will teach everyone how to hoot like an owl with any luck the group will get to watch one in action.

On February 9th, Julie Morris (director of horticulture here and container planter-upper extraordinaire) is teaching a bonsai workshop where you’ll get to take home your very own trainee. Anyone who loves the miniature worlds of fairy gardens and terrariums will get hooked on bonsai too - it’s inevitable. I’ll be there.

After that on February 12 (just in time for the big V day) learn all about the health benefits of chocolate from herbalist Bonnie Kavanagh. Evidently chocolate is one of the major food groups (I knew it all along) - try samples, learn recipes and impress your Valentine.

Hop on the bus to the Smith College Botanic Garden on February 23. Our own greenhouses are very cool (if I may say so myself) but I was blown away by Smith’s. There’s just nothing like house after house after house of the most amazing plants from all over the world. If you can tear yourself away from the greenhouses (I had trouble) the entire campus is a gorgeous garden too. This trip needs 30 people to happen - please oh please sign up by Feb. 6 - for my sake if not your own!

Learn about xeriscaping from landscape designer Brooke Merriam on February 27. Anyone with a garden who remembers last years drought (let’s not sugarcoat it - some of us watered a lot) should attend this class. Xeriscape isn’t about desert gardens anymore - it’s about being smart about water.

March 1 is all about (All Abuzz over) bees and honey. If you’re half as facinated as I am by bees and how important they are in the world, you won’t want to miss this. Local beekeepers will tell us all about pollination, bee culture and keeping. And after trying honey samples and different cheeses from Milk and Honey Bazaar you might never have the same relationship with regular sugar again. It’s honey for me all the way. (Hey look! - It’s so warm today, the bees are out! You’ll have to believe me - they don’t show up well in the photo.)

Our own Susan Gimblet is sharing her love of African Violets on March 19. She’ll be selling plants from her own (ginormous) collection, and will divulge all the secrets she knows about growing and grooming healthy bloomers. Look out - African Violets can be as addictive as terrariums and bonsai…

We can’t be awake in the world right now and not be thinking “green”. Bob Chew from SolarWrights will talk about renewable energy systems on March 22 and show how you can transform your home into a lean green machine.

Finally, get out your camera and learn digital garden photography from a real pro on March 29. Barbara Bourgette, an organic gardener and artist will show examples of her work and critique yours. This is a camera’s-on workshop. Just think - you and I might find ourselves using some of those mysterious bells and whistles on our fancy cameras!

I don’t know about you but my calendar is filling right up. Anyone else as gratified as I am to fill fresh pages with what’s going on?

It’s garden bloggers’ bloom day and I’m distracted from blooms! Not a day went by this summer when I didn’t try to see up the skirt of a bloom with the macro setting on the camera but lately I’m all for the wide angles. Working in the garden I get so focused on the details that just like when I spend too much time in front of the computer, it feels good to stretch my eyes on the distance. (That said, I did look for some perfect close-ups in honor of bloom day - the Enkianthus is not blooming, I know, but isn’t it so bloom-day pretty? As usual, click-on for a larger look)

This has been a long fall so far at Blithewold. We are getting eased into the bare distances of winter. This is the time for gardeners to get a broad look at our gardens and then retreat inside for mind’s eye dreaming. The Annual Garden Design Luncheon is perfectly timed to provide a fresh thought palette for those dreams. Today Douglas Reed (preeminent landscape architect from the firm Reed Hilderbrand in Watertown, MA) spoke to us about designs that fully “connect” us to the place. In his work, Doug evaluates each project site based on its history, the lay of the land and its natural attributes and rather than eradicating any of that (which LAs are perfectly capable of doing) he works to enhance our personal experience within - and looking out from - the site. He talked about how our own childhoods also help to create a connection to a place. Kids spend the first few years taking in and processing their surrounding environment. What we learned then (the shape of a tree, the size of the sky) never leaves us and instead informs how we build and inhabit our adult world. I hadn’t really thought about it that way before! And only yesterday I read an interview (sent as link in comment on yesterday’s post - thanks, Max!) of a California based garden designer who talked about how his Newport childhood influences his work.

As a landscape, Blithewold fits its place in the world (Doug beautifully illustrated this point) and because of the views within and out, we are personally grounded in it. I suspect the Van Wickle/McKee’s probably felt an even deeper connection to the place and worked with the site (not against it!) to create something that felt viscerally familiar to them.

Do you feel that kind of “connected” to your own garden or any other landscape? Do you see childhood views in your gardens/landscapes? I’d love to hear from anyone who attended today’s luncheon - don’t be shy! - and I put the question out as a possible meme too if any fellow bloggers feel tempted to write a full post… (Please put a link in a comment so we’ll all know if and where the conversation continues!)

Were you ever scolded as a child -or do you scold your own children- for making a mess? The answer for most of us is probably “you bet”. I submit though that it’s in our natural nature to love a good mess. I think it’s satisfying to fling things and gratifying to tidy up. This morning I admired the aftermath of this weekend’s storm (nature flung things).

My boss, Julie had already picked up sticks in the Bosquet and made piles - sometimes I think she’s actually tempted to go out in a storm and catch sticks as they fall. When I asked Fred if he wanted/needed extra hands (mine) to help clean up he said “it’s not that bad. Unless you have a burning desire to pick up sticks…” I don’t. It’s always less fun to pick up someone else’s mess, don’t you think?

So after doing some stick-picking-up anyway, I made my own mess.

I love to pot up. The potting shed is designed to contain messes. I can spill soil with wanton abandon and groom dead leaves straight onto a floor pile. I don’t have to be careful of the furniture! Today I took the wedding pots apart and divided and repotted the phormiums. Phormiums (New Zealand flax) aren’t as hard to divide as you’d think. I set them on the floor and parted the blades until I found a mid point with at least a semblance of a seam between the fans of blades. Then I stabbed the seam with my hori-hori and wrestled until I felt and heard the rip tear of roots. It was totally satisfying mess making… and I can’t put off the gratification of cleaning up any longer… Do you have a place you can make a proud and uncareful mess?

It just occurred to messy-me that I should tell you that those fingernails will be clean next Thursday for the Annual Garden Design Luncheon and there are still some seats available!

It’s hard to compete with a street fair, a Touch-a-Truck (”some had air horns!” said one kiddo I know), a nearby harvest festival with do-it-yourself scarecrows, a working waterfront festival a few towns over and a gorgeous warm breezy sunny day that made being out on the water requisite for anyone with access to a boat — BUT Blithewold’s Fall Gardener’s Day was where the gardeners were. I was hoping to meet fellow bloggers and readers but alas you attended incognito and in spirit - those who were here must have caught my shy bug — it’s going around… I was even going to take a guess-who shoe portrait! (If you look really closely, you can see the hazy outlines of at least a dozen pairs of feet who were nearly here - and guess who?!)

Most of my day I bounced from the Blithewold plant sale table (where I was camped to sell begonias, clivias, figs and other greenhouse babies) to the other vendors’ booths where I spent considerably more than I earned that day! I caught snippets of lectures and eavesdropped on rave reviews. By the sound of it Andrew Grossman had everyone rethinking their garden design, Lisa Gibson McMahon sent everyone home with beyond-frost salad starts and Barney Webster spawned a few water gardener wanna-bees. And everyone learned something new from flower drying and arranging, fall container planting, and pruning, to what will change for gardeners as the climate changes.

Just because Fall Gardener’s Day is behind us (and ahead - mark your 2008 calendar) doesn’t mean we’re done showing off the garden - the kaleidoscope continues! And Jake (who answers to many other names) has appointed himself cutest greeter - can you stand it?!

Yesterday’s fog cloud lifted just in time. (I suspect helpful fairies.) Long shadows, golden brights and dulcet tunes on guitar and mandolin were the stage set, backdrop and surround sound for a gorgeous evening Soiree in the Display Garden - the final one for this season (stay tuned for next year’s Soiree listings). Italian wines and cheeses were a perfect complement for a positively Tuscan light (it’s what I imagine anyhow…) and an exhuberantly abundant fall garden.

Gail and Julie and I answered questions about the gardens but the buzz on everyone’s lips was the Fairy Houses. It was the best thing to see otherwise elegant and sophisticated grown-ups go in search of a little playful magic! (Fairies are everywhere!)

In Soiree preparation we moved new combinations into the Idea Beds (placing a beautiful potted plant in a daylily hole can make the whole garden seem new again), tidied Gus-Gus’ pond, raked paths and deadheaded with the Deadheads and fine tuned with the Rockettes. Good luck follows Katherine, one of the Deadheads, who was paid the highest compliment from one of the garden’s sprites! (Magic is all around us!)

The feeling of last night lingered in the garden this morning and it looks for all the (enchanted) world like the conversations continue.

Fairies need decent affordable housing too! Yesterday a group of dedicated and skilled laborers built a new fairy community on a Blithewold subdivision. The houses were constructed of green material and fit beautifully into the landscape - this was a very environmentally conscious endeavor! I took a walk down this morning to see how the fairies were settling in but oaf that I am, I must have frightened them because the place was fairyly deserted. I didn’t think they’d mind though if I took a little look around…

Looks like I disturbed breakfast… Sorry!

Clap your hands if you believe! (and don’t you all just want to go right out and build a new house for your resident fairy?!)

To see more pictures of Fairy Magic in the Garden and the building crew at the constuction site click here!  (photos of the kids with their houses by Gail Read)

Mark your calendar; save the date! Blithewold’s Fall Gardener’s Day falls on September 22 this year and looks like it’s going to be a blast. Between 10 am and 3pm, workshops and demonstrations will be given all over the property and look so good it might be a little difficult to choose where to be. (My advice is to bring a friend/spouse with a notebook, split up and attend everything!) All of the programs, from flower drying and arranging to post-season fresh veggie possibilities and fall container planting, are geared to keep the got-to-garden fire lit in you — remember how jazzed you were heading into spring? We say, don’t give up yet!

I personally won’t want to miss Fred and Dan’s demos on shrub pruning and grass growing (I’m pretty sure my motivation to go to theirs is to be supportive - not to make faces). I want to see Kathy Tracey’s (owner of Avant Gardens) demo on fall container planting because she’s a genius and Barney Webster’s (owner of Nelumbo Water Gardens) talk about low-maintenance water gardens because he cleaned and stocked our cement pond - he’s the man behind the lotus! I don’t really want to miss Gil Moore’s (star volunteer and gardener extraordinaire) demo on flower drying or the medicinal herb walk either… But most likely, if I’m not wandering around with my camera, I’ll be spending most of the day at a table hawking some beautiful babies from our greenhouse. And I want you to find me! Calling all gardeners, garden bloggers, and Blithewold blog readers - wherever you are, if you can make the trip - let’s have a meet-up!

Gardener’s Day goes on rain or shine so if the weather looks iffy, bring an umbrelly and your dancing shoes (for celebrating an end to the dry spell) and don’t forget to pack a picnic. Oh - and bring wine tasting taste buds (Sakonnet Vineyards will have samples) and a little cashola too for spending on plants, previously loved gardening books, local veggies and flowers, herbal products, and Art. Be there or be square! (See you there??)

Click here for the all-star line-up and schedule of events.

I could have sworn I heard my first cicada yesterday. It was that kind of blazing hot day you’d expect to hear a chorus of them. So maybe I heard it through wishful thinking (auditory halucination) because I haven’t heard it again! There are a few things that herald full summer for me and that’s a major one. (The first swim in the ocean is another; first minor league baseball game… anyone else care to add to the list?)

How about a picnic on the lawn? Blithewold’s second Soiree was held in the North Garden and this time almost everyone brought supper! What a good idea - and some of it looked really tasty! Everyone sampled California wines and cheeses while listening to the smooth crooning of Jeffery Thomas, a local musician who serenaded us from the porch. His singing was so melifluous and his song choices so sweet that it seemed to me that love was in the air. For the couple of couples who looked inclined to dance (but were too shy) and the Japanese beetles picnicing and cavorting on the climbing hydrangea, the evening was definitely romantic! Since I was unaccompanied, instead of strolling arm in arm and sharing bites of cheese-n-cracker with a cutie, I wandered in search of soiree-ers with garden questions. And I found some FAQs! First question: “What kind of mulch is that - it’s so delicate and attractive!” Answer: Buckwheat hull mulch. Although it’s a bit pricey (around $12/3 cubic feet), we love it in that garden and the Rose Garden because it’s elegant, organic, mold resistant, and adds an excellent fluff to the soil as it gets mixed in over the season. Next question: “The edges are beautiful - how do you keep them looking so crisp?” Answer: Fred Perry, Groundsman extraordinaire, cuts the edge every spring with a sharpened spade and trims it weekly after mowing using a string trimmer held vertically. There were appreciative comments all over the place - everyone raved about the food, the music and the garden - it just doesn’t get better than that!

Rain was forecast for that evening but never materialized. Good for the Soiree; bad for the gardens! The Petasites (poorly sited) look like I feel after blazing days spent watering! It has stayed hot (90’s) but at least whatever system came through that night blew in a breeze and blew out the muggyness.

Here are a couple of choice bloom pics before I leave for the weekend (it’s Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day this Sunday but I might not make it in for a post - this and another on Monday might have to suffice!) Please let me know if you get tired of seeing Lotus pictures because it’s so cool I can’t seem to stop!: The second bloom opened this morning and check out the fruit from the last one! Someone told me that it’s edible - anyone have a recipe? (Not that I would harvest any of these beauties… I wouldn’t want to deprive anyone of a photo op!)

The Balloon flowers opened this week - they are such a beautiful deep french blue (cobalt with a little rose madder thrown in maybe - are any of you painters who mix colors as you walk the garden?)

And click on the picture below to blow it up - the flower is wee (a little purple on a snakey green stem). I love Stachytarpheta (porterweed) for its weirdness. It’s in the verbena family, doncha know.

In a comment on my last post, a good friend of mine spoke (rather eloquently, I thought) about a dreamy, different sort of world than the one we inhabit now. He said, “i envision a world in which … everything in the form of entertainment comes from real people right in front of you, and communication might be slower than it is now, but more effective, and everyone smiles more …” (Brendan’s comment, in its entirety, is a click away at the end of my last post). By all accounts the Rock Garden Soiree was the kind of evening that offered a glimpse into that beautiful world. Marjorie Jeffries played her own compositions on the flute while people soaked up falling light in the garden, sipped wine and enjoyed eachother’s company. The evening was a perfect topping to a variable New England day - the threatening rain gave way to clear, mosquito-less skies, a breeze for the Wednesday night yacht race in Bristol harbor and that perfect balance of humidity that probably made everyone’s hair look just right. I wasn’t there but Gail took the pictures of gorgeous people enjoying a gorgeous evening. The next Soiree will be in the North Garden on July 11. Let’s go!

Gail and I were “real people” entertainment today at the Newport Flower Show - allowing us another glimpse of a beautiful world… We gave a tag-team demonstration on how to create a terrarium (a beautiful mini-world) in front of about 70 people. (There was only one mic so instead of just finishing Gail’s sentences, I had to come up with a whole bunch of my own! It was kinda fun! –I was actually too exhausted to be my usual terrified…). This is a peek at the demo terrarium I made with the most adorable begonia! (I think it might have to live at my house for awhile - I’m sure there’s no room for it here…!)

The Annual Meeting is behind us, the (monthly) Garden Soirees are before us, visitors visit daily and the blooms must go on! I know I’m not the only one who tidies madly at home for invited guests and then slacks off the dusting when it’s just me and mine eating in. At Blithewold though - and any garden open to the public, there’s no napping instead of mowing or sipping iced tea in the adirondacks rather than deadheading! We’re on the “garden tour” every day and it’s important to us and to our guests that the gardens and grounds look well tended. The night of the Annual Meeting was chilly enough to move the party indoors and despite the ominous clouds and bitter wind, several Blithewold devotees wandered the grounds. We (I think I can speak for Julie, Gail, Fred and Dan) were extremely gratified to hear over and over how beautiful the property looks and how well cared for it is. And we were back bright and early the day after to keep at it.

The Florabundas (the Thursday volunteers) who cleaned grape hyacinth out from under the chestnut rose last week, did the same thing on the other side of the Visitor’s Center yesterday. The bed with climbing roses on the west side of the rose garden has been getting more and more concrete-like over the years and we spent the morning forking out weeds and bulbs and working a little air in finally. (The entire Rose Garden definitely has a compaction problem because we stand and walk all over the beds when we tend the roses.)

Today, I’ve been trying to concentrate on getting more plants out of the greenhouse. But just like moving out of a house, I’m not loving this part of the process! I much prefer the part at the end of moving where I get to feng shui the pots around the garden. I also love to groom potted plants and keep getting distracted…

So rather than fight it, here’s some blooms for Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day: The lopsided Styrax - blooming only on the east side. Fred thinks its because of the weird winter or maybe it’s not getting enough sun (there’s a bunch of Styrax’s not blooming at all…)

The Aegopodium is blooming away in the Bosquet. It really is a pretty ground cover but it’s completely obnoxious and invasive – don’t plant it!!!

This is a Persicaria or maybe a Polygonum. Anyone know for sure what it’s called?

One of my new favorites is Allium ‘Hair’. It’s definitely morning monster hair rather than a frenchgirl coif… Gotta love it! (Or do you?)

And for color here’s Papaver atlanticum semiplenum with a busybee.

Finally, not-a-bloom but a beneficial-to-be — a teeny! weeny! praying mantis! (I saved him/her from a spiderweb and it didn’t want to stand still for a portrait - but I insisted.)