Sharing Stories About Our Woodlands

Monday, March 7, 2011

Almost 7:30 here on the mountain and things have finally quieted down for the day. The temperature is still dropping--it's 14.5° now, and it's expected to drop below zero a bit before it comes back around tomorrow morning. The snow has pretty much stopped although you could still be confused at the 7 mph wind tossing horizontal waves at anything that gets in the way. I noticed that an hour ago as I took Karl the Wonder Dog out just in the middle of the evening news. He has very poor timing....or perhaps prefers to avoid "bad news".

Snowfall around the state varied today from "not much" (trace to 3" in Springfield) to 30" in the shadows of Mt Mansfield and the Sterling Range from Stowe past Jericho-Underhill. If you live around here you are tired of hearing that kind of news but for folks from afar where spring is on their minds, this snow is a surprise. Tonight just before dinner the phone rang and it was a caller from Orange County, California. He had seen the article about daylilies in Fine Gardening Magazine and noticed our name mentioned as a daylily vendor. He was thinking spring in his zone 9 gardens but was surprised when Gail updated the weather info for Monday in Vermont. That reaction is not uncommon this time of year and I know we lose some sales when people are impatient to plant and we can't give a better shipping estimate than "mid-May"

This time of year I enjoy the quiet even if it comes packaged with snow plowing or shoveling or even getting up on the roof. I can take things slowly and I can catch up on my reading. One of my favorite Vermont magazines is Northern Woodlands. It arrives quarterly with a tag line I like: "A New Way of Looking at the Forest". I think I picked up my very first copy at the little Mom and Pop store in Cabot village in the early 90's. As I think back, I don't even know if there was a real "mom and a pop" back then but then the store sold and there wasn't a mom or a pop and then it sold again and there was and continues to be. Those little stores are like forests, they change over time and some of them do not return to a picture we'd like to remember.

Anyway, this is a fine magazine and no matter where you live, it's something you might consider subscribing to. If you have a son or daughter or grand kids taking any aspect of environmental science in college, this is a useful gift that will put them a step ahead of others.

N0rthern Woodlands has a feature I really enjoy and I refer to often. It's called A Look At The Seasons MAIN EVENTS by Virginia Barlow. It comes three months at a time and fours weeks per month. For each week of each month the author presents a summary of events of the forests, swamps, fields, waterways. I find it very accurate and I enjoy the reminder it serves to me. It looks like this.

For the first week in March, now almost history:

"Brown creepers have started to sing their endearing song. Some of them have been here all winter, but others have come from wintering grounds farther south. We can see creepers all year, but individuals come and go/ Warm days bring snow fleas to the surface. At first they look like flecks of pepper on the snow, except that they appear and disappear/ Barred owls are nesting in old hawks' nests or tree cavities. Incubation is mostly done by the female."


When I read the notes, I reflect on what I have recently seen or heard or sensed. I like Northern Woodlands. I'll bet you would too!


Writing from the mountain above Peacham Pond where a sliver of moon may show by midnight as the balance of storm clouds pass. Hungry critters of the woods and pastures will begin moving soon after more than 24 hours of storm. Still too early to start seeds here.

George Africa
The Vermont Gardener
Vermont Flower Farm
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PS: Bird on magazine cover is a Nashville Warbler photographed in Brunswick, Vermont by Roger Irwin. Regrettably for me I have never seen this beautiful bird or met the skilled photographer. Anyone seen this bird?

Alabaster Trollius

Sunday, January 6, 2008

I have always been interested in meteorology but the closest I'll ever come to an honorary degree is an annual visit to the Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium in St Johnsbury. They have a great weather program called Eye on the Sky and give some very good lectures on weather. It's a museum to visit if you're in the area. A learned weather person would describe this morning as "overcast'" but I describe it as "the sky is heavy". The sun is absent and the gray cloud cover looks fuzzy and thick and the feeling outside is that some weather change is in process. The temperature has not budged from 29.7 when I got up at 5:30 and lacking a barometer I don't know how quickly the change is closing in. Eye On the Sky suggests things will warm up later and limited precipitation will fall.

Karl the wonder dog wanted to go out as soon as I got up so we got that out of the way early on. He kept pulling down the road towards Kim's house and then decided his feet were cold and he B-lined for the house. I am not particularly amused but being pulled around so early in the morning but I do like this dog although I regularly profess not to.

Gardeners that live in the same house are an interesting combination and they often talk in flower-speak that is confusing to everyone, themselves included. It's often a language that misses verbs and nouns and adverbs and similar things but it seems to be marginally understood so that life can go on. As the size of the gardener's gardens and gardening knowledge grows, so does the incidence of this type of communication.

Last night Gail and I were going to watch a movie that she has been looking for all year. Then we got into the start of the New Hampshire debates on ABC. The movie never made it out of the DVD case and I knew as soon as the Republican debate had finished that we were in for the duration.

This time of year Gail is always reading flower magazines or rechecking her orders. Somewhere along the way she mumbled "Got Alabaster." I later was reminded that she tried to say "Got Alabaster from Walters" but I never heard the last half. The debate had just finished up with a news clip of a man who woke up one day and said "I'm running for president" ABC showed him walking around Manchester NH speaking with people and I was immediately rewinding my short term memory to determine if his name was Alabaster.

What Gail was trying to say was that she had been trying to locate a trollius plant named 'Alabaster' for several years and until this year she hadn't been successful. This year Walters Gardens, a top-of-the-line wholesaler from Zeeland, Michigan, was offering the plant and Gail had received confirmation that what she ordered would be delivered. I obviously do not have a picture of this plant yet but if you go to Google Images and plug in Trollius 'Alabaster' you'll see what the mysterious plant looks like. (Some of the pictures are incorrectly labeled but the real 'Alabaster' should stand out).

I was happy to get through the conversation and will enjoy 'Alabaster'. So will all the customers who have been asking for it for years. It will probably sell out in a couple weeks and then we'll have to wait until we can either buy some more in or divide up those I line out this Spring. ......By the way, I still don't remember the name of the man who wanted to be president.

Trollius are a great plant. They are known as globe flower (also globeflower) and are Ranunculaceae if you travel that path. Wild buttercups that line rural roadways are part of the heritage. They are poisonous if eaten so go someplace else for supper or snacks. They grow well in heavy clay soils and can handle water. The perimeter of a bog garden or along a stream are good placements but they will grow well in full sun as they are planted here. They make excellent cut flowers and they will rebloom most years if you deadhead them as soon as the first flowers fade.

If you make it to our new location on Route 2 this summer, look around the large boulders in the daylily display garden that will parallel the road. You'll see some trollius there. They will be newly planted and small this year, probably only reaching 20" but next year they will represent mature plants and you'll really catch the reason we like them.

Time to get the newspapers. Be well and have a nice Sunday!


Writing from the mountain above Peacham Pond where Northern Woodlands Magazine reminds me that I shouldn't expect to see more than the single pair of red breasted nuthatches that have been visiting the feeders. They are territorial birds and a pair defends up to ten acres. Check out this neat little bird at the Cornell Ornithology site.

George Africa
The Vermont Gardener
Vermont Flower Farm

Vermont Gardens Another blog

Christmas Ideas

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

4.1 degrees below zero this morning and the absence of the wind is nice. The nor'easter that hit Sunday dropped over two feet of snow here and being married to a shovel handle, a snow rake, and a snowplow for all of yesterday wasn't my idea of fun. In my high school days I plowed snow with a rag top Jeep for a local lady. It was her Jeep and I got to use it as long as I worked for her. Some memories are fun but youth has a way of covering up bad things. I know today that plowing snow for hours on end in a vehicle in which you could always see your breath was not good. There was a little electric fan blowing on the windshield to keep open a clear spot within the over-glaze of frost. It worked for me back then but now even plowing has become a chore.

A week from today is Christmas. Our tree has been up and decorated for a week, the house is accentuated with flowers and decorations, and a pot of citrus, cloves and cinnamon simmers on the wood stove lending a baseline fragrance we confuse with baking cookies and holidays foods. It is a pleasant time.

Each year I try to offer some thoughts about gifts. They are all simple gift ideas from a simple gardener but things that a gardener or anyone who enjoys New England might enjoy. I understand that this is the age of gift cards but giving just a little thought to a gift shows you care.

Magazines are like newspapers in many respects. They are being replaced one by one with
on-line productions which are much less expensive to produce and more environmentally responsive. I'm reminded of this at holiday time when the mailbox is full of catalogs. I still haven't gone to the "do-not-call" type website for the catalog world. You can actually ask to be taken off catalog mailing lists. According to the direct mail industry, 95% of all catalogs are not even opened before they are discarded and successful direct marketers are pleased if they receive orders from 1% of their mailings. Do the math on that one and you'll come up with a number representing a lot of trees that served no purpose at all.





Just the same, there are two magazines I really like. They are People, Places and Plants and Northern Woodlands, both New England magazines. Gail and I have met PPP's founder, Paul Tukey, here at Vermont Flower Farm when he came to prepare for an article on our business and discuss an article I helped write on growing hostas. He is a great person, knowledgeable of gardening, well traveled, a good father and a gardener with a perspective. In the past couple years he has founded SafeLawns.org, For a Healthier Planet, of which Shepherd Ogden from Cook's Garden days is the Executive Director. If you buy a subscription to PPP right now, they'll send you an accompanying gift subscription for a friend. This way you can give yourself and a friend a super present at the same time. If you look at the SafeLawns site you'll see where Paul has taken the subject of organic lawn care international. In a world that has yet come to understand chemical pollution, Paul's work on safer lawns is worthy of a thought at holiday time. He has written a book, The Organic Lawn Care Manual, describing his pursuits and it's available from Storey Publishing. So the PPP Magazine is a good start and although the book might produce thoughts of prior lawn chemical-spreading guilt, it will encourage a plan for the future. Between the magazine and the book you can either have chemical free lawns and nice gardens or no lawns at all and very, very nice gardens.

Northern Woodlands is like having a personal trainer. It doesn't come out nearly often enough but when it does I am amazed at what I can learn. It's great for anyone who enjoys the outdoors and would be great for a school teacher at about any level. Every issue has some mention of flowers from the wild that we should be watchful of, discover and protect. I especially enjoy the A Look At The Season's page which offers a week by week review of what to expect over the course of the next three months. You might have to adjust a week or so one way or the other depending on where you live but it's a close enough reminder to keep you on target in subsequent years.

Books are traditional and this is an area I leave to bookstores to help with. I could never get through even the new books I purchase every year. A couple I do like are little pocket sized books by Kate Carter. Her first was Wildflowers of Vermont and her more recent release,
Shrubs and Vines of Vermont. These are valuable little guides which slip easily into a pocket. They have a protective plastic cover too. Publisher and author info is available at http://www.wildflowersofvermont.com

Sometimes gifts can be no more than a super nice card, even a handmade card and some scribbled thoughts. I like to receive these because they stick with me as memories. Our friends Tracey and Diana pick out great cards every year. They are so special to me I keep them out year round. The picture at the far top of the page is from a painting by Cindy Gage Stotz at Studio C. http://www.studiocweb.com It is titled "Spruce Trees".

This card (below) is titled "snowy spruce" and it's by Katharine Montstream of Montstream Cardworks in Burlington. Take a look at http://www.kmmstudio.com

My card has been sitting on the little CD player by the kitchen stove since last Christmas so the snowflakes have a little splattering of spaghetti sauce but it's the trees that count.



Another fun gift is membership to any of Vermont's fine, but too often overlooked museums. Fairbanks in St Johnsbury, ECHO in Burlington, Montshire in Norwich, North Branch Nature Center in Montpelier, Vermont Institute of Natural Science...to name a few.

And if all else fails and the gift truly has to be"gardening" and you don't know where to go, give Gail a call at 802-426-3505. A handmade Vermont Flower Farm gift certificate with a picture from one of our gardens will certainly fill the void and solve the gift problem. Where else can you get Vermont hardy plants, garden advice, local chit chat and a sense that this is a place you have to return to time and again?

Karl the wonder dog just gave a whine that in dog speak says "Let's get going, it's time for our last call-of-the-night walk." Tonight it will be a nicer walk as it's 15 degrees out, with gently falling snowflakes and no wind. If you were here, you could walk with us.


Green garden wishes,

George Africa
The Vermont Gardener
http://vermontflowerfarm.com
http://vermontgardens.blogspot.com