Nothing brings to mind the holiday season quite like the smell of fresh cut balsam. Bringing the outside in has been a tradition for hundreds of years, with some changes over that time. The most important things to remember, no matter what kind of tree has been elected to grace the home, are to never, […]
The shining jewels of the holiday season belong to the genus of plants known as Ilex, the hollies. Be they bunches of twigs covered in glossy, pointy leaves and red berries, or bare stems loaded with fruit, holly brings brightness and life to the otherwise bleak winter season. Hollies are native to many different parts of […]
End of November, again. Time to get the last of the oak leaves off of the lawn (at least till the first real snow comes, and then whatever is left on the trees will come down), tie up the arborvitae and holly bushes, and put the teepees over the rhododendrons to protect them from the […]
Most of the leaves are off the trees now, gardens are all but put to bed, and we’re starting to hunker down for the longest season; a time for spending indoors, but not without enjoying some of the beauty of the outdoors. One of the easiest and most fun ways to do this is to […]
That time of year is here again… actually, it’s been that time of year for several weeks, but they just showed up in my apartment over the last weekend. Zipping around, bashing themselves into light fixtures, clinging to windows, and generally making a nuisance of themselves. If they land on you, they’ll bite without much […]
Over the last several weeks, gardening has slowed down, but people are still calling and coming in with questions. This week, we’ll go through the most popular ones, so all you gardeners out there can share in the knowledge! We certainly know it is getting cold; the plants do too. They would much prefer to […]
The great garden cut-back has started, with the first real frost/freeze that came earlier this week. Hosta turned yellow and melted into the ground, daylily blossoms turned to mush; there will not be any more blossoms this year. One group of plants that are just starting to come in to their season of beauty, though, […]
October is well entrenched. The smell of woodsmoke is everywhere, cool, crisp mornings and evenings have become the norm, and the sky is that perfect blue that only happens in autumn, providing a perfect backdrop for the changing leaves. Peak color is usually around the 2nd or 3rd week of the month. Knowing which trees […]
So… it’s fall. Some parts of southern Maine, at least, have in fact gotten a killing frost. I brought the few annual herbs I have in pots inside the house to save them, as well as my mandevilla vine (small, but blooming and beautiful!), and picked all 3 of the green tomatoes off my plant […]
The days and nights are getting colder, the leaves starting to change to more brilliant shades of red and gold. It’s time to start cutting back the gardens and preparing them for a long sleep under the snow. Summer-blooming perennials that have gotten too large for their homes over the summer should be dug up […]