Tuesday, March 19, 2024
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Garden Notes

Garden Notes: ‘The Island is our garden’

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Saluting the longtime motto of the Martha’s Vineyard Garden Club (est. 1926), “The Island is our garden”: Whether as a declaration or as a goal, it suits this Island we cherish. It is the Ides...

Garden Notes: Pruning and planting

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The Feb. 13 snowfall was glorious. Leap year February kicked in with its familiar self, but tardily, mid-month. And March — in like a lamb? Wintry conditions may give ticks pause, beech trees a break,...

Garden Notes: Gardeners can help wildlife with their data

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Sunshine! After weeks of overcast and rain. Winter usually brought deep blue February skies, but now, when we say “winter,” what are we referring to? Snowdrops and witch hazel, hellebores and species crocus are some...

Garden Notes: First light

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Late January. Along the path, buds and new growth are revealed. Peeping out from wet oak leaves, the hellebore seedlings trail parent plants and hardy cyclamen. The first crow calls just a little after...

Garden Notes: Winter comforts

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The Island had a taste of snow. It was just enough for a 3-year-old, visiting from the South, to get his first experience of winter’s beauty. Snowscape lights up objects and landscape differently, revealing...

Garden Notes: Returning light

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In a new twist on winter garden decor, wispy, earliest-ever threads of witch hazel flowers incongruously accompany out-of-season forsythia. It is growing evidence of our screwy seasonality. Astronomically, the Northern Hemisphere is now in true...

Garden Notes: The short days and long nights of winter solstice

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Eying Pinetree Garden Seeds’ 2024 catalogue with the pink celery cover is the “eyes bigger than the stomach” moment. Perusing seed catalogues propels us into the future, and future gardens. Fall’s decor to winter’s food Pumpkin...

Garden Notes: On into the winter

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Beets and indeterminate tomato varieties are a good bet because they prolong the harvest in our warm, extended autumn weather pattern. Conversely, the determinate tomatoes are those that bloom and set fruit in an all-at-once...

Garden Notes: The harvest holiday

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Island gardens for the most part have finally succumbed to frost. (Thanksgiving, when we had pond skating here when I was a little kid in West Tisbury!) Ursa Major, the Big Dipper, has assumed...

Garden Notes: Find the color in deep fall

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Vivid backlit foliage and low sun gleam fleetingly. Frost has visited some Island gardens. The wren chirps loudly at dusk, “gather-in, gather-in,” her inclination and ours too. The days of least light lie before...

Garden Notes: Lovely autumnal colors

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It seems sudden, like — overnight: Aronias dripping with ruby fruit, hollies winking red, and sumac’s scarlet foliage topped in crimson velvet cones. In the rain, the fig and the native witch hazel are...

Garden Notes: Chrysanthemums reign supreme

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Now that gardens are settling into the subtler phases of autumn and the end of the season, it is a good point to evaluate what works and what you like. Cleanup, which reveals the...

Garden Notes: Fall in full

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Farewell to summer ’23, and welcome to fall. The autumnal equinox occurred on Sept. 23. The remnants of Tropical Storm Ophelia coincided, bringing 2.5-plus inches of rain. This, in addition to Sept. 18’s 2.6...

Garden Notes: Uncontrolled growth

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As to what is happening with the weather, Hurricane Lee’s Atlantic path titillates in the news, adding a frisson of danger to coastal lives and visits. Despite what could very well become a dangerous...

Garden Notes: New chapters in the garden

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Butterfly time — monarchs, swallowtails, skippers, clouded sulphurs, painted ladies, cabbage whites — they flutter, sail, and float above the garden, reveling in the sunlight. Visitors and family have left, or are leaving, and there...

Garden Notes: The mid-August moment

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Clethra scents Island byways, and it is time for the fair — the mid-August moment. Effort and inspiration are on display in hall and grounds! The purpose of agricultural societies and agricultural fairs is the...

Garden Notes: Moving into August

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The heat and lack of rain, compared with elsewhere on the mainland, are almost minor details. We should know what to be grateful for. In the vegetable garden after work, cicadas gently sawing away in...

Garden Notes: Elderberry

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Native viburnum have gone by, but another white-flowered native is in flower. Elderberry (Sambucus canadensis) is one of those plants one might encounter hiking in conservation land, since it is associated with damp places...

Garden Notes: New wildlife in my garden

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Native viburnums bloom alongside the road and in gardens where native plants have a healthy presence. Once pollinated, the flowers evolve into umbels of beautiful blue fruits, appreciated by many birds and other wildlife....

Garden Notes: Summer is really here

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One thing is for sure, even if it is a droughty spring: If there will be rain at all, it will happen during peony season! The recent three short rain events, each about three-eighths of...