Wednesday, June 18, 2025
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Abigail Higgins

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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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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!...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Garden Notes: Spring flower fever

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This is the bloom-struck stage of late spring, the joyous and exciting time to have a garden, or to be in a garden. Each morning...

Garden Notes: Pallid foliage? We await warmer weather

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Autumn olive (Eleagnus angustifolia) and grasses are blooming, and add to oak and pine pollen. Odd weather this spring, it seems: cold, drought, and...

Garden Notes: Spring’s magic moments

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The graceful beeches along banks of West Spring Street near the Tashmoo Water Works, and down the hill into Menemsha, have leafed out, always...

Garden Notes: The spring garden

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Gus Ben David and Chameli the golden eagle have been sharing their journeying and learning together for 41 entwined years! The winter was mild, but...

A garden note

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Earth Day, April 22, falls outside the usual cycle of “Garden Notes” this year. It appears we who garden are among the remaining protectors...

Garden Notes: Ah, spring

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April: The first ospreys utter their distinctive cry hovering high above, while redwing blackbirds warble mellifluously in the marsh below. Only heard since the...

Garden Notes: A shout-out to spring

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“Daffy down dilly has come up to town In a yellow petticoat and a green gown.”  –Mother Goose rhyme They are a shout-out to spring, which may...

Garden Notes: Never say never

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Officially, it is almost here, although spring is never early on the Vineyard. Whatever the signs might be, disregard them! There is usually a...