Thoughtful musings on various topics by interesting people at Blithewold

Some flowers for you

In honor of Valentine’s Day, here are some flowers blooming in the Blithewold greenhouses.  No long-stem red roses for us.  We take great joy in our unusual winter-blooming plants.  I hope they bring a smile … Read more.

Pretty Leaves to Christmas Trees

The past couple of weeks Gail and I have had our attention divided between fall garden cleanup and Christmas decorating.  Despite the drought this past summer, the trees have still managed to show a good … Read more.

November is brilliant

The colors are turning here in a spectacular way.  With every twist of the path I spy a new favorite plant to photograph.  Gail and I can’t stop taking pictures of all the gorgeous trees … Read more.

A little bit of everything

From T-shirts to winter coats – was it really just last week that we had temperatures into the 80s?  This week has been quite the change.  I had to pull out my winter work gear … Read more.

Dreamy dahlias

Happy autumn!  The light shifts and the nights get cooler, but there is still so much color here in the gardens.  A lot of that color comes from dahlias and sages (Salvia spp.), which are … Read more.

Charmed

August is exhausting, it has to be said.  The extreme heat and humidity drains every desire I have to linger in the garden.  It seems as though, here in little Rhode Island, everyone and their … Read more.

Color vision

  Every once in a while, the plans we make for a garden turn out just as we hoped.  That perfection doesn’t happen quite as often as I would like, but the unpredictable factor in … Read more.

Cosmos on my mind

    It’s been a hot and humid July week.  Any delusions I had of enjoying a cool, temperate summer have evaporated into the extreme humidity.  However, on the bright side, flowers are bursting out … Read more.

Garden fireworks

Happy Fourth of July weekend!  It’s that time of the summer when we finally begin to take a step back from our full-speed-ahead mode of May and June.  Just when Gail, Sean (our intern this … Read more.

Ranunculus are here!

  Spring is definitely in full swing here and already hinting at summer!  It was so warm this week that the lovely spring blooms we’ve been anxiously awaiting buckled a bit with the first blast … Read more.