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 in West Tisbury!) Ursa Major, the Big Dipper, has assumed...
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 and ours too. The days of least light lie before...
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 the rain, the fig and the native witch hazel are...
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 what works and what you like. Cleanup, which reveals the...
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 inches of rain. This, in addition to Sept. 18’s 2.6...
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 and visits. Despite what could very well become a dangerous...
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 sunlight.
Visitors and family have left, or are leaving, and there...
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! The purpose of agricultural societies and agricultural fairs is the...
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 the vegetable garden after work, cicadas gently sawing away 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 in conservation land, since it is associated with damp places...
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 beautiful blue fruits, appreciated by many birds and other wildlife....
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 season!
The recent three short rain events, each about three-eighths of...
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 seems to deliver another delight into existence, and it is...
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 a pollen storm par excellence, until the weekend’s rainfall.
Many flowering...
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 part of Island spring’s magic moments. Spring has sprung again:...
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 this spring has been harsh. Temperatures are brisk, but sunny...
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 of our natural surroundings: wetlands, pollinators, bats, nesting birds, clear...
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 end of March in my area, pinkletinks have chorused for...
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 otherwise be reluctant to arrive here. The earliest miniature daffodils...
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 big disappointment waiting to ambush the overeager.
It is, however, time...