Category Archives: Gardens

Fall To-Do List: Don’t Forget The CHS Plant Sale

by Nancy Schoeffler Categorized: Gardening, Gardens Date: September 24, 2015

Perennials to divide, late fall vegetables to get planted, spring bulbs to get in, bird feeders to clean and get ready, garlic to plant, tender plants to move back indoors, apples to harvest (and what an apple year this has been!), dead heads to deadhead, and, of course, leaves to peep… and then to rake.

Etc. etc. etc.

You might have thought you could fall back, but hah! Fall gardening tasks sometimes seem never-ending — and, in fact, they are.

But take a breath. And instead, think of spring ahead.

Yes, the Connecticut Horticultural Society’s Fall Plant Auction & Sale is this Friday, Sept. 25. It’s an excellent chance to stock up on perennials, shrubs, trees, houseplants, gardening books, bulbs and more. And a chance to support the CHS Scholarship Fund.

Admission is free at the sale, held at the Tolland County Agricultural Center, 24 Hyde Ave. in Vernon. Doors open at 4:30 for donations and setup, but the sale itself begins at 7 p.m., and the auction at 7:15.

Then, back to the garden! There’s still plenty of work to be done…

Glorious, Gorgeous Gardens Galore

by Nancy Schoeffler Categorized: Garden Design, Gardening, Gardens, Landscape, Landscape Architecture Date: September 11, 2015

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For many people, including yours truly, this is the time of year when one’s garden often starts to look, well, rather raggedy around the edges.

So it is hard not to marvel at the great number of private gardens that are still in such spectacular, well-tended shape that they are open to the public this weekend.

The national Garden Conservancy, sponsor of the wonderful Open Days program, is moving toward more in-depth, regional programs, and a slew of gardens are open around the state this weekend.

Visitors are welcome to stop in at as many or few as the schedule permits. Admission to each private garden is $7; free for children 12 and under.

On Saturday, gardens are open in Redding, Weston, Wilton, Meriden, Canton and Glastonbury. The action moves for the most part to Litchfield County on Sunday, with gardens in Roxbury, Bridgewater and several in Washington open for ogling.

The weather should be delightful, and the gardens inspirational. For complete details, including garden descriptions and directions, go to www.opendaysprogram.org.

Meanwhile, here’s a sneak peek:

Acclaimed potter and photographer Frances Palmer is opening her garden in Weston, pictured above and below, Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. It is especially noted for dahlias and her “Alice in Wonderland” flowers.

Then swing over to Pixie Perennials in Wilton, where there will be a plant and local artisans’ sale as well as a beautiful garden to stroll through, pictured below:

Fashion designer Linda Allard of Ellen Tracy fame is opening her garden, Highmeadows in Washington — pictured below, and featured recently in an article by Tovah Martin in Architectural Digest — on Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The fashionably designed garden with exquisite sense of color features a pleasing mix that is part formal garden defined by boxwood hedges and part more informal potagere, with fruits, vegetables and flowers. The new woodland garden is said to have been inspired by William Robinson’s 1870 classic, “The Wild Garden.”

And among the other gardens open on Sunday is Maywood Gardens, pictured below, the largest private estate in Litchfield County, with 1,000 acres. It includes a sunken perennial garden protected by 10-foot stone walls, a gazebo garden planted with butterfly- and hummingbird-attracting flowers and shrubs, a rose garden arranged in a French design surrounded by a circle of hemlocks, a woodland path, a heather bed, a white garden, an herb garden, an ornamental kitchen garden, a 4,000-square-foot greenhouse and more. Phew!

This special weekend coincides with the release of the Garden Conservancy’s new book, “Outstanding American Gardens: A Celebration – 25 Years of the Garden Conservancy” (Abrams).

Vegetal Venom, Poisonous Plants

by Nancy Schoeffler Categorized: Books, Botany, Gardens, Just Because, Plants Date: April 4, 2015

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Gardens often are replete with mystery, but murder? Well, yes.

In a very entertaining story, The Financial Times reports on a garden at Torre Abbey in Torquay, England, where the various plant species that Agatha Christie used in her murder mysteries to dispatch hapless victims have been assembled. Torquay is a seaside town on the south coast of England where Christie was born and had a vacation home later in life.

From ricin hidden in fig paste sandwiches to digotoxin, derived from the foxglove plant (which Agatha used to bump off Mrs. Boynton in “Appointment With Death”), the Potent Plants Garden, managed by head gardener Ali Marshall, seems like quite a deadly delight.

Click here for the full story.

Photos via the Financial Times, from top: Ali Marshall, Agatha Christie, foxglove.

A Garden To Honor Garden Writer Lee May

by Nancy Schoeffler Categorized: Garden Design, Gardening, Gardens Date: April 3, 2015

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Harry Link, a master gardener who lives in East Haddam, had the great pleasure of being Lee May‘s friend. They were next-door neighbors for 12 years until Lee, a well-known garden writer, moved back to Atlanta from Connecticut in 2013.

Having just been in touch by email with Lee in November, I was stunned and terribly sad when Harry told me that Lee died in December after a short and difficult fight with cancer.

Now Harry is planning to install a memorial garden at the East Haddam Senior Center in Heritage Park to honor Lee. The garden will be dedicated on May 30 — and it will be a surprise for Lee’s wife, Lyn, who will be visiting for a memorial service.

Here’s Harry’s sketch:

Harry told me that Nancy Ballek Mackinnon, a partner at Ballek’s Garden Center in East Haddam, is contributing “tons of perennials,” and other garden centers also are donating plant material. One section of the garden will be planted to attract lots of pollinators.

And, as an homage to the distinctive style of Lee’s own garden — with its rock assemblages and dry bed stream of stone — Harry plans to incorporate those sorts of elements as well in the memorial garden, on town property just off Great Hillwood Road and Route 149. The gently curved garden — about 90 by 45 feet — also will incorporate a rain garden and several pathways, and Harry says he’d like to buy an arbor for an entry.

He also says a granite bench will be carved with words of Lee’s: “Gardening … well, gardening is life.”

Harry has set up an account with the town for cash contributions (which are needed). They are tax-deductible, and can be made to the Lee May Memorial Garden Fund, East Haddam Finance Department, 7 Main St., East Haddam, CT 06423.

“Lee meant so much to me, so I just want to honor him the best I can,” Harry said.

I can’t think of a more fitting tribute.

I met Lee and Lyn when I visited to write about and photograph the garden back in 2010. Lee had shifted gears in the early 1990s from being an award-winning hard news and investigative writer for the Los Angeles Times and the Atlanta-Constitution to focus on garden writing.

Lee’s distinctive garden in East Haddam was one of Asian grace and playful touches. His quiet humor rippled through the landscape. For example, he tucked rubber snakes here and there in an effort to scare off squirrels. “They were amused,” he dryly observed.

Lee’s passion for pruning trees in search of their essence was fascinating, too.

Most of all, I was touched by Lee’s gentle demeanor, his sheer pleasure in both story-telling and in creating enticing and enjoyable spaces in nature. He worked with nature and shaped it, but he clearly revered it, too. Take a ramble through his wonderful blog: Lee May’s Gardening Life.

And here’s my story: Click here.

Lee May at his garden in East Haddam.

Photos by NANCY SCHOEFFLER

A Japanese lantern harmonizes with the stone and rock in the garden.

One of a number of handmade cairns.

Japanese blood grass, one of many varieties of grasses in the garden, adds a brilliant jolt of color alongside a bridge over a dry bed stream of stone.

Bonsai played an important role in Lee May’s East Haddam garden.

Secret Gardens

by Nancy Schoeffler Categorized: Books, Children, Elizabeth Park, Garden Design, Gardens, Heritage, Landscape Architecture, Magazines Date: April 3, 2015

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This month’s issue of Hartford magazine is all about secrets — and included are two secret gardens that I’ve loved visiting.

Secret gardens have captivated me since girlhood — even before I first read Frances Burnett Hodgson’s classic novel, “The Secret Garden,” rooted in the wisdom of a garden as a healing, health-restoring tonic.

In particular, I was entranced by the sheltering bowers of rhododendrons at my grandparents’ home, where I often played hide-and-seek with my siblings and cousins (all of them younger than I). Those hiding places offered quite a refreshing respite; I could get away from the fracas and daydream, yet still be part of the action.

Back in 2010, work had just begun on what is now the glorious Heritage Rose Garden, in an intimate and often-overlooked corner of Elizabeth Park. Restoring the garden and replanting Elizabeth Park’s collection of old roses — and I mean old, all of them developed prior to 1867 — was the centennial project of the Connecticut Valley Garden Club (though the actual centennial isn’t until 2017).

One of the ancient roses included is the Apothecary Rose, at right, developed before 1240 and thought to have been brought to France by a returning Crusader.

Alice Prescott Whyte, an aficionado of antique roses and author of “The Roses of Elizabeth Park,” designed the 10 raised beds in a lovely rosette pattern. Her photographs of roses are featured here. Back in 2010, when volunteers were replanting the roses and the garden still looked pretty bare, Alice told me that the popularity of contemporary Knockout roses has knocked a lot of older roses out of favor.

“We’re saving history, one rose at a time,” she said.

The Heritage Rose Garden is tucked a little bit out of sight so be sure to make a point of discovering it later this spring, when the park’s famed Rose Garden arches and beds are in full flowering glory.

For now, feast your eyes on Krystian von Speidel’s appreciation: click here.

Another Hidden Gem

Meanwhile, Iris Van Rynbach writes about another hidden garden — this one in Farmington, created by landscape architect Fletcher Steele in 1954.

A pioneer in landscape design, Harvard-educated Steele designed nearly 700 gardens in his career. Many were at grand estates, like the renowned gardens he designed in the 1920s at Naumkeag in Stockbridge, Mass., now a museum, with its renowned Blue Steps flanked by white birches.

It was quite a coup for Stuart and Mary Smith to have the highly exacting designer transform their 1-acre yard on Main Street — which he initially derided as looking like Tobacco Road — into such a serene showplace.

Here’s a link to Iris’ story: click here.

I love the tale of how the garden was created in the 1950s by the renowned Steele, who had a fondness for martinis and a rather authoritarian streak.

And here are a lot more photos of the garden, by Mark Mirko and yours truly: click here.

Photos, from top: Heritage Rose Garden at Elizabeth Park (courtesy of Elizabeth Park).

Cardinal Richelieu, Apothecary and Camieux roses (by Alice Prescott Whyte).

Farmington garden, including view of ram’s head fountain drenched with water (all three by Mark Mirko).

Spring Fever? Here’s An Intoxicating Cure

by Nancy Schoeffler Categorized: Composting, Crafts, Garden Design, Garden Ornaments, Gardening, Gardens, Horticulture, Landscape, Nature, Plants, Seasons, Vegetable Gardening, Wildlife Date: February 18, 2015

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“After that hard winter, one could not get enough of the nimble air.” — Willa Cather, “My Antonia”

If you’re yearning for the intoxicating fragrances that are the very breath of spring, “the throb of it, the light restlessness, the vital essence of it everywhere” that Willa Cather so aptly described, there’s no need to feel discouraged by the mounds of snow that still abound.

The 34th annual Connecticut Flower and Garden Show opens Thursday and runs through Sunday at the Connecticut Convention Center in Hartford, and while the show is not the same as an actual spring day, it does offer a tantalizing preview of springtime to come, which is particularly welcome this time of this year.

The show covers nearly 3 acres and includes 18 professionally designed gardens that cover more than an acre. Yes, these gardens are indoors, but the sights and scents are so pleasing to one’s winter-weary senses.

Nancy DuBrule-Clemente of Natureworks in North Branford said her winter-battered spirits were completely turned around when she started setting up for the show earlier this week. “Huge witch hazel trees forced into perfect bloom, piles of mulch and sod, flowering plants absolutely everywhere — my soul was soothed and I came home singing a joyful song!”

There are more than 300 booths with displays of flowers, plants, garden ornaments, bulbs and seeds, gardening books, patio furniture and more. If you can dig beneath the snow in your yard, bring along a half-cup of soil to the UConn Cooperative Extension’s booth for a free soil test.

I always love the eye-popping creativity of the Federated Garden Clubs of Connecticut’s Advanced Flower Show — more than 250 entries that could inspire you to new heights of artistry when arranging a few flowers of your own.

And through the show there will be more than 80 hours of seminars by horticultural, garden design and gardening experts, including:

Mar Jennings on “Creating Casual Luxury in Your Home and Garden”;

Garden photographer and author Ken Druse on “Making More Plants: Propagation” and on “Natural Companions”;

Garden author and photographer Amy Ziffer of Sherman, whose “Shady Lady’s Guide to Northeast Shade Gardening” is an invaluable guide, on “Shade Revealed”;

Roger Swain, former host of “The Victory Garden” on PBS and HGTV’s “People Places & Plants on “Vegetables That I Have Known and You Will Love”;

Bob Buettner, Connecticut Florist of the Year in 2010, on “Floral Arranging”;

Organic gardener, photographer and lecturer Karen Bussolini of South Kent on “40 Great Plants for Connecticut Gardens” and “Gardens in Winter.”

The list of seminar topics goes on and on — “Create and Enhance Wildlife Habitats in Your Surroundings,” “Rain Gardens,” “Daylilies,” “America’s Romance with the English Garden,” “Composting and Soil Health,” “Water Gardening Basics,” “Working with Wetlands on Your Property,” “Disease Control in Home Vegetable Gardens,” and many more. For the complete seminar schedule and details about the presenters, Click Here.

The seminars are included in the price of admission, which is $16 for adults, $14 for seniors age 62 and over (Thursday and Friday only); $4 for children age 5 to 12, and free for children under age 5.

Hours are Thursday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Convention Center is at 100 Columbus Blvd.

For more information and details on parking, including free parking, Click Here.

Photos courtesy of Connecticut Flower & Garden Show

Hartford Blooms! Today Through June 29

by Nancy Schoeffler Categorized: Architecture, Art, Elizabeth Park, Garden Design, Gardens, Heritage, Historic Houses Date: June 21, 2014

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This picture-perfect first day of summer is an ideal start for Hartford Blooms’ 20th anniversary extravaganza, a nine-day celebration of Hartford’s glorious gardens and architecture. Dozens of walking tours are on the schedule.

The kickoff includes guided tours of Elizabeth Park’s magnificent gardens, and later today there’s a cocktail party at Vito’s by the Park.

And weekdays, gather at the Butler-McCook House and Garden on Main Street for a reception — where plein air painters will be creating art as you watch.

Click here for the story I wrote for Hartford Magazine: http://hartfordmag.com/article-1984-hartford-blooms-the-city-in-full-flower.html

A $10 tour book serves as your ticket for all the events. Click here for complete details: http://www.hartfordblooms.org/

Photographs via Hartford Blooms

New Roses, Less Of A Wait

by Nancy Schoeffler Categorized: Gardening, Gardens, Plants Date: February 26, 2014

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Attention, rose enthusiasts: David Austin Roses, the renowned Shropshire, England, rose hybridizer, has five new English roses for Spring 2014. Each is a repeat bloomer.

The company also is now making the lineup of its new roses available in North America just two seasons after they’re introduced in Britain, which is speedier than in years past.

Here are the five new beauties:

The salmon blossoms of ‘Boscobel’ change with age to a rich, deep pink. A Leander hybrid, its flowers start as red buds that open to blooms with an estimated 78 petals per flower.

(And an interesting note on the name: Boscobel is famed as the place where King Charles II hid in an oak tree when Cromwell’s soldiers were pursuing him during the English Civil War in 1651; it’s not far from Austin’s nursery.)

‘Tranquility,’ a Musk hybrid, has buds that “are lightly brushed with red and yellow” and open to petals of pure white, with about 110 petals per flower. The rose apparently has a light apple fragrance, and the plant is nearly thornless.

Deeply crimson ‘Heathcliff,’ named, of course, for the complicated and romantic character in Emily Bronte’s “Wuthering Heights,” is an Old Rose hybrid with large double flowers of rosette shape. The plant has shiny deep green leaves.

‘The Lark Ascending,’ named for Ralph Vaughan Williams’ sublime piece of music, is another Musk hybrid. The flowers with loosely cupped petals — just 22 each — are a soft pale apricot that lightens over time. Its tall, airy growth makes this rose suitable in a mixed perennial border or among flowering shrubs.

And finally, ‘Royal Jubilee,’ at left and at top, is an Alba hybrid in a luscious deep pink. Introduced in celebration of Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee in 2012, the large, semi-double flowers have broad inward-curving petals, about 35 each, known as a chalice shape. The blooms have a fruity fragrance and the plants have very few thorns. Its wiry stems help ‘Royal Jubilee’ fit in easily with other plants in a border.

Austin senior rosarian Michael Marriott says the right time to plant bare root roses is when the ground is no longer frozen but “but still cool and pliable.” The cool soil helps bare root roses establish strong roots. Optimal daytime temperatures should be 40 to 60 degrees, before days routinely top 70 degrees.

That means this is about the right time to order.

The complete 120-page “David Austin Handbook of Roses 2014” is available free and is packed with roses, as well as information on classification and what kind of roses to plant in various sites.

To request a handbook, go to www.davidaustinroses.com, email US@davidaustinroses, call 800-328-8893800-328-8893 or write David Austin Roses Ltd., 15059 State Highway 64 West, Tyler, Texas 75704.

Spring Is Just About Here

by Nancy Schoeffler Categorized: Composting, Do It Yourself, Elizabeth Park, Flowers And Floral Design, Garden Design, Garden Ornaments, Gardening, Gardens, Horticulture, Houseplants, Insects, Landscape Architecture, Plants, Seasons, Trees, Vegetable Gardening, Wildlife Date: February 22, 2014

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Forget about that pessimistic, unreliable groundhog. The surest sign that spring is just about here is the annual Connecticut Flower & Garden Show, which runs through Sunday at the Convention Center in Hartford.

After so much snow, the fragrance of flowers and mulch is intoxicating. Booth after booth — there are more than 300 — offer ideas and information for your “Backyard Paradise,” as this year’s show is titled. And there are numerous seminars from gardening experts.

Saturday hours are 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., Sunday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. For details:www.ctflowershow.com.

The Federated Garden Clubs of Connecticut’s juried show also is inspirational, with designs that have rhythm, movement balance, intriguing textural contrasts and some playfulness.

This medley in chartreuse (right), including papyrus, carnations, hydrangea, spider mums, lily grass, bells of Ireland, variegated aspidistra, amaranthus and steel grass, is by Amber Pratt of the Garden Club of Kensington.

Carolyn Bernard of the Garden Club of Madison (above left) plays around with the idea of apples and oranges in this whimsical tabletop display, which also includes Brussels sprouts, asparagus and spray roses.

The dynamic swirl of birds of paradise with monstera, apidistra and sabal palm (left) is by Barbara Deysson of the Shippan Point Garden Club.

The artful drama of this design (right) by Cathy Ritch of the Long Hill Garden Club in Trumbull includes anthurium in and under water in a glass globe, accented with wire mesh and blue swirls.

Duane Luster of the Country Gardeners of Glastonbury garden club combines heliconia with philodendron, bamboo, fasciated (fantail) willow and red maple (left).

Juried flower show photos by Nancy Schoeffler

Rice paper butterfly from Magic Wings, a Massachusetts butterfly conservatory. Photo by John Woike | The Hartford Courant.

Hartford Blooms: A Call For Gardens

by Nancy Schoeffler Categorized: Architecture, Elizabeth Park, Flowers And Floral Design, Garden Design, Gardens, Heritage, Historic Houses, Landscape Architecture Date: February 21, 2014

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The afternoon could not have been bleaker, slushier, grayer or more dismal.

But Mike McGarry, the former Hartford city councilman who founded Hartford Blooms 20 years ago, burst the afternoon drear into full blossom as he described with infectious exuberance the glorious plans Hartford Blooms has for June: a nine-day garden tour extravaganza, June 21 to 29, with garden, architecture and history tours around the city, garden lectures and evening receptions at the Butler-McCook House.

Hartford Blooms presented a garden tour last year in the West End, and the year before on Ashley Street. This June’s event incorporates that, and so much more.

“We’re collaborating with a wide range of organizations to show how important gardening is to beautifying and unifying our city,” Mike said.

There are so many glorious gardens — private gardens, public gardens, gardens at churches, businesses and institutions — and so much outstanding architecture “right under your nose,” Mike said.

Remarkably, the tour book that will be a ticket to all activities and tours over the nine days is priced at just $10.

However, some tours will have limited capacity, so it’s a good idea to purchase your book now. Make checks out to Hartford 2000 with “Hartford Blooms” in the memo line, and mail to Hartford 2000, c/o CREC, 111 Charter Oak Ave., Hartford, CT 06016.

Or stop by the booth Hartford Blooms is sharing with the Elizabeth Park Conservancy at the Connecticut Flower & Garden Show this weekend at the convention center.

Hartford Blooms also is still lining up gardens for the tours. If you’re interested in showing off your garden — whether it’s grand or just a lovely pocket garden, go to www.HartfordBlooms.org.

And here’s Mike’s op-ed in The Courant, “Hartford Blooms Sets Mega Garden Fete,” with more details: Click here.

You’ll see what I mean by infectious enthusiasm.

CT Digs

Connecticut Home & Garden

Category Archives: Gardens

Fall To-Do List: Don’t Forget The CHS Plant Sale

Glorious, Gorgeous Gardens Galore

Vegetal Venom, Poisonous Plants

A Garden To Honor Garden Writer Lee May

Secret Gardens

Spring Fever? Here’s An Intoxicating Cure

Hartford Blooms! Today Through June 29

New Roses, Less Of A Wait

Spring Is Just About Here

Hartford Blooms: A Call For Gardens