This is our new tree.   It is a Red Sunset Maple.  I took this picture about 4 days ago, and today it has absolutely no leaves.  Amazing what one windy day will do!  I have to thank Julie Walton Shaver and her website, http://treegrowersdiary.com for helping me choose this beautiful tree.  My landscaper called us from the [...]

Here is my rosemary topiary today.  I’ve been clipping it a little at a time, and it’s starting to turn into a ball.

It’s not that difficult to make a topiary out of rosemary.  I had a young plant at the beginning of the summer.  I snipped all the shoots off the sides, only leaving the ones at the top.  I staked it to train it to grow straight and tall.  Over the summer, whenever I needed a [...]

I must digress from my usual gardening blog to tell you about Rodrigo and Gabriela.  In case you don’t know them, they are 2 native Mexican guitar players who didn’t make it big until they moved to Ireland about 8 years ago. I went to their concert Wednesday night in Boston and they blew me away.  Probably [...]

This was the best year I ever had for sweet peas.  I think because I planted them in a section of the garden that gets afternoon shade.  Other years they got sun all day and it must have been too hot for them.  Either that, or it’s the variety I planted for the first time [...]

This is my arugula at the end of the season.  I planted it in succession, but didn’t pull out the older plants and they kept growing all summer.  Even though I guess they did bolt, there are flowers, the leaves didn’t taste bitter, they just got larger.  So I’ve been eating the older plants.  I [...]

Yesterday I dug up all the old strawberry plants, replenished the soil with compost, and planted new plants (from the runners).  I usually do one row at a time, so it’s not such a big job, but I had neglected to do anything at all for 2 years, and it was time to replace both [...]

I have finally had success with raspberries.  I learned from my father, a great gardener, that you should devote your time to growing things that are either expensive to buy in the grocery store (like beets), or that you can’t buy in the grocery store (like homegrown tomatoes and strawberries).   Raspberries are very expensive, and I [...]

Here’s a closeup of a pink larkspur.  So delicate.

I’ve only recently started to grow larkspur.  I love them, but I don’t have good luck getting more than one good bloom out of them.  I’ll get a few side shoots if I deadhead, but nothing like the first stalk of blooms.