Thoughtful musings on various topics by interesting people at Blithewold

The urge to keep growing

Despite increasingly frosty temperatures some plants in the garden seem unable to resist the urge to keep growing and are lending a whole new meaning to the idea of “evergreen”. Usually by now have extolled … Read more.

Hypertufa trough tapestries identified

The best thing about hypertufa troughs is that they give us a place to plant tiny fragile things that might otherwise be lost, trampled, or overtaken in our gardens. They are also especially perfect for … Read more.

Trough love

Ever since Gail and I went on a bus trip to Wave Hill – eight or so years ago – we’ve been coveting hypertufa troughs. A year or two after that trip we each made … Read more.

Cool veg

In the last post I mentioned that Gail and I just picked more vegetables for the East Bay Food Pantry. It’s no accident that we still have veg to pick. Back in the middle of … Read more.

Bonus days

Fall is dragging its feet getting into winter and although some people and plants I know are ready for it to be cold, it couldn’t be a sweeter treat for us gardeners. We’ve been braced … Read more.

Gifts of Nature

To me it still feels too early to talk about the holidays – I avert my eyes from any commercial Christmas display at least until the day after Thanksgiving – but Blithewold’s decorators have been … Read more.

Leaving it

After Tropical Storm Irene stripped the color from so many trees around here back in August I was pretty pessimistically convinced that fall color would be lousy this year. And maybe that’s why it has … Read more.

Channeling Julie Moir Messervy

She makes garden design look so easy. Last Thursday for the second time in exactly a decade Julie Moir Messervy enraptured the Garden Design Luncheon crowd with her graciousness, easy-going wit, energy, style, and utterly pragmatic approach … Read more.

Indian summer

It’s almost 70 degrees outside, the air is feather-soft, the sky is blue-blue and the sun has that golden, get-under-your-eyelids slant. It’s the kind of day that absolutely insists that we get outside. We should … Read more.

Pockets of color

There has been a lot of speculation ever since Irene blew through that this wouldn’t be a good fall foliage year. Even in the days after the storm the horizon – particularly anything facing south … Read more.