Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today; And give us not to think so far away As the uncertain harvest; keep us here All simply in the springing of the year. ~ Robert Frost
It's short and sweet. No undue obligations. No present-buying, card-sending or mounting of plastic Santas on rooftops. We simply gather with family and friends around a big table, toast the season with nice wine and enjoy a homemade meal of turkey and all the traditional trimmings.
Over the river, and through the wood, To Grandmother's house we go; The horse knows the way to carry the sleigh through the white and drifted snow.
Over the river, and through the wood Trot fast, my dapple-gray! Spring over the ground like a hunting-hound, For this is Thanksgiving Day.
--Lydia Marie Child
As a gardener, flowers are integral to my Thanksgiving celebration but I keep them classic and uncomplicated. Bouquets shouldn't be formal, complicated affairs with wired stems. Rather, my formula for gorgeous cut flowers is: simple + full = stunning.
Place one large arrangement in the entry area to welcome guests. The vase is important so choose with care–whether crystal or pottery, modern or antique. Keep the stems long and fill with a profusion of flowers.
On the dining table I adhere to two rules: nothing tall and nothing fragrant. Place several short, matching arrangements in identical vases in the center of the table. Diners can view the flowers up close and can see across the table. Use three or more bouquets, depending on the length of the table.
For a homogenous look, choose one flower and buy plenty to fill all vases generously. Or buy a mix of flowers but of the same color. A bouquet of dahlias, tea roses and alstroemeria in similar shades of rich burgundy would be stunning. Look for wax flower, hypericum berries, pepperberry or sea lavender for filler. Always use plenty of greenery–seeded eucalyptus, myrtle, salal, nandina and leucadendron.
In a final gesture of Thanksgiving, offer guests a table arrangement as they leave.
This also appears in the Askov American, Askov, Minnesota.
July is a wonderful month in Minnesota. Summer has settled in and many take advantage of the gorgeous weather and head to lakes and cabins for their particular form of R&R.
Many area farmers markets will open for the season in July. In addition, July is the premier month for garden tours that are usually hosted by local clubs and organizations as fund-raisers. Both are not to be missed.
In the garden, high summer can still mean lots of work, especially if vegetable, fruit and herb gardens are part of the landscape. Weeding, watering and harvesting continue to be daily chores. In the perennial garden, though, July offers a different sort of opportunity. Much of the frenetic planting and dividing were completed in spring or now must until fall, so what's a gardener to do? Make time to find that bench or chair and, with a tall glass of something cool to sip, rest and relax.
Others agree.
Summer afternoon - summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language. ~ Henry James
Deep summer is when laziness finds respectability. ~ Sam Keen
It's late April and here in the middle of the continent where we're far from the moderating influence of oceans, winter is reluctant to let go.
Remember studying Greek mythology in high school English class? I imagine this time period as a tug-of-war, played out as a struggle between Greek gods. The Winter God, who has flowing white hair (a bit like Gandalf, perhaps?) and is dressed from head to foot in thick furs, is on one side. On the other side is the Spring Goddess, a lovely creature who wears a crown of wildflowers and a gossamer gown.
All at once, the woods and fields and gardens in our region are burgeoning. It seems as if every bare branch is sprouting something–whether foliage, flower or fruit–and each square inch of soil has something green emerging.
I'm ecstatic that spring has finally arrived. All I can think of is my favorite chorus from the Messiah, George Frideric Handel's masterpiece.
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! --Charles Jenners, Halleluhah Chorus from the Messiah
The forest floor of our deciduous woods has come alive with hundreds of wildflowers. I'm not sure where to step. I don't want to crush any of the newly emerging trilliums, hepaticas, bellworts, wood anemones and purple, white and yellow violets. Rivulets, streams and pond edges are thick with luscious yellow marsh marigolds.
The blowsy, white flowers of amelanchiers (serviceberry or shadblow) are clearly evident. Sprouting stiffly at sharp angles from slim blue beech branches are tiny, new leaves. Foliage of maples and oaks are showing and aspens are turning the woods into a dreamy, chartreuse haze as the fluttering little leaves emerge.
Welcome to May–a beautiful month! It is chock full of holidays, including May Day, The Fishing Opener, Mother's Day and Memorial Day. There will be lovely days when playing hooky from school or work will seem appropriate. And, on the first warm evening, our screen porch will open officially for the season with an aperitif of chilled rose wine.
May is also my birth month and two years ago, my sister, Barbara, sent me a birthday card which I have kept. She wrote a lovely note inside and on the front of the card is the following poem.
She is a gardener. She works with her hands. She plants seeds. She watches for growth. She waters the hedges. She understands the seasons. She follows the sun. She believes in nature. She knows about life. She affirms the living. She sees poetry in each flower. She reads meaning into each leaf. --from a KOCO NY card. Janeen Koconis, Graphic Designer
Do you look around the landscape outside and see no signs of life? Sure there are evergreens, strong silhouettes of deciduous trees and tufts of brown from herbaceous plants. I mean life. We can add freshness, fragrance and vitality to our inside spaces through copious amounts of plants but what about on the other side of the window?
In winter, an ideal way to enhance the outside garden is to invite life into the space through bird feeders and a heated bird bath.
From a plan in Carrol Henderson's book, Wild About Birds: the DNR Bird Feeding Guide, my husband made a simple cedar feeder which we hung from the big Norway pine just off the deck of our former home. I attached a bird bath heating element to the edge of a large, plastic terra cotta saucer and placed it on the edge of the deck. Unknowingly, we had created a bird spa!
I don't know who enjoyed it more–the birds or us. My husband and I would yell to each other from all over the house, "The red polls are here!" Then we'd watch as the flock denuded our birch of its catkins.
The big blue jays noisily flew in and took long, splashy baths. Chickadees flitted hurriedly between feeder and water. Juncos, goldfinches, purple finches and nuthatches also gathered.
The appearance of the cardinals, though, was unequaled. Their hours were sunrise and sunset. The males were macho and brilliant red but I was enchanted to see the females up close, especially in the fading light. The subtle coloring of their feathers and their softer presence were breathtakingly lovely.
We're settling now into winter…and there are different ways to think about that.
The days are getting longer, albeit slowly. Since the winter solstice, we've gained about 20 minutes of sunlight. Yea!
Even though gardening and seed catalogs are filling up mailboxes, it's still, really, too early to contemplate spring.
With the beginning of a new year and while those resolutions are fresh in mind, January is a perfect month to be inside and to complete boring chores, like cleaning, filing, storing, donating, pitching, organizing.
Ultimately, though, it's invigorating to step outside and breathe in fresh, cold air. My favorite time to walk May, our black Labrador, is during the early evening. The woods are calm. Peace and tranquility prevail.
Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. --Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Happy Autumnal Equinox! Happy Harvest Moon! September is full of important celebrations.
The autumnal equinox is the astronomical event when the sun is directly over the equator and there are almost equal hours of night and day. It also signifies the end of summer (boohoo) and the beginning of fall.
The Harvest Moon is the full moon closest to the autumnal equinox and its rising time is special. Normally the moon rises about 50 minutes later each day as it orbits around the earth but close to the occurrence of the Harvest Moon, the time between sunset and moonrise lessens to about 30 minutes. Folklore states that this shorter period of darkness after sunset allowed farmers to continue working into the moonlight and therefore get all their crops harvested.
Another name for the Harvest Moon is the Wine Moon. Now that's folklore that I can celebrate!
In the garden, Autumn is, indeed the crowning glory of the year, bringing us the fruition of months of thought and care and toil. And at no season, safe perhaps in Daffodil time, do we get such superb colour effects as from August to November. ~Rose G. Kingsley, The Autumn Garden, 1905
Can't you just feel it? That first night when the temperature dipped? That's when I knew. Summer is waning, fall is on its way and that makes us a house divided. My husband is giddy as he anticipates his favorite season full to the brim with dog training, wild bird field trials, grouse and woodcock hunting and guiding.
It's a bittersweet time for me. I adore the warmth, food and bright flowers of summer and am sad to see it end. Knowing what follows fall brings about a slightly ominous feeling of foreboding.
But, in the meantime, fall is absolutely glorious in Minnesota. If you're a gardener and plant lover like me, the fall landscape is second only to spring. Nature somehow agrees because it sure holds nothing back as it signs off in a blaze of glory. Think of the sumptuous colors of fall leaves and berries: coral, tangerine, scarlet, cranberry, maroon, burgundy, bronze, gold, copper, russet, umber, amber. Wow!
Here is a list of my favorite plants to enhance fall gardens.
Perennials: Asters (many cultivars to choose from including the 18" 'Dome' cultivars to the 4' New England aster), fall-blooming anemones, chrysanthemums, native grasses, sedum 'Autumn Joy'.
Vines: Sweet autumn clematis, porcelainberry vine, bittersweet, Boston ivy, hops.
Shrubs: Cranberrybush viburnum, gray dogwood, glossy black chokeberry, hydrangeas (especially 'Tardiva' and 'Annabelle'), shrub roses (choose those with good fall color and persistent hips), cool new sumac, 'Tiger Eyes'.
Trees: Maples, birches, aspens, oaks, tamaracks.
Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower. ~Albert Camus
We are teetering, literally, on the brink of spring. I thought we had it made when those balmy days in late March occurred but what a tease. We were blasted with a snow storm in early April followed by frigid temperatures and howling winds. I don't know about you but my resistance is weak……and I've got spring fever.
But still, we know, spring is imminent and patience is a virtue. Soon enough the soil will warm, shoots will emerge and the miracle of renewal will be everywhere. I can't wait!
It's spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you've got it, you want - oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so! ~Mark Twain
On Tuesday, March 20, at 7:07 p.m., the vernal equinox occurred. The first day of spring has a fancy definition (the time when the sun is at one of two opposite points on the celestial sphere where the celestial equator and ecliptic intersect) but I prefer something a little easier to understand. The vernal equinox is the day when there are equal hours of day and night.
It's paradoxical perhaps but very often the first day of spring is hardly spring-like. Ever the optimist though, I remember one of my favorite quotes from Sig Olson. Sig was a naturalist/conservationist/writer who made his home in Ely and became a friend when I also lived in Ely.
It makes no difference if the ice is still thick on the lakes and the drifts are as deep as ever. When that something is in the wind, the entire situation is changed. I caught it one day toward the end of March, just the faintest hint of softness in the air, a slight tempering of the cold, a promise that hadn't been there before. Then I became conscious of the sound of trickling water beside me–nothing more than a whisper, but the forerunner, I knew, of a million coming trickles that would take down the drifts of the entire countryside. It was there that I got my first real whiff of spring: the smell of warming trees, pines and balsams and resins beginning to soften on the south slopes. I stood there and sniffed like a hound on the loose, winnowing through my starved nostrils the whole composite picture of coming events.
