Thoughtful musings on various topics by interesting people at Blithewold

Mid-summer shift

The gardens are going through a bittersweet transition from June’s hurrah to a mid-summer huzzah, and although we sometimes experience a “July gap,” the shift seems pretty seamless this year. Delicate oxeye daisies gave way … Read more.

Top 13 for 2013 (part two)

Starting right up where I left off last week (and in hopes that pictures of sunny summer flowers might ease the bone-chill of a polar vortex), here are the next seven in my baker’s dozen … Read more.

Top 13 for 2013 (part one)

Thirteen has always been one of my favorite numbers (a baker’s dozen might be why) so it’s a treat for me, and I hope for you, to bracket the New Year with an extra long … Read more.

Slow gardening

This week has to have been the prettiest week of the summer so far. The sky is clear as a bell, a slightly lower humidity level has made it easier for internal thermostats to function … Read more.

Missed stakes

By now we have a pretty good idea of what plants in the garden are going to fall over by mid-summer and we usually plan way ahead to prevent floppage. We have whole sets of … Read more.

How we beat the heat

We didn’t. We just rolled with the sun’s punches, sweated buckets, and are still recovering. But even though we lost the fight in some respects — we lost a week with the volunteers, lost appetites … Read more.

Perennial planting spree

I think we outdid ourselves. In the last couple of weeks Gail, Betsy, the volunteers, and I planted about 700 perennials and a handful of shrubs. Going into our planning season this past winter, Gail … Read more.

The wait of winter

A comment from Kira on my last post echoes a sentiment I read recently in an article by Tovah Martin in Horticulture Magazine and something I’m feeling the crush of too: we’ve had a long … Read more.

Blooms worth waiting for

We’ve spent the last couple of weeks moving back into the greenhouse; a touch of frost fell this past Saturday morning; and we’re mentally preparing to take the gardens apart this week to make way … Read more.

All eyes on peonies

Even after so many years gardening (how many? I’m much too young to say 20+) it still feels counter intuitive to transplant in the fall. Maybe it’s because I love the fall garden and don’t … Read more.