Abigail Higgins
Garden Notes: The harvest holiday
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
“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
Officially, it is almost here, although spring is never early on the Vineyard. Whatever the signs might be, disregard them! There is usually a...