Month: November 2009
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Books, Garden Design, Organic Disease Control, organic gardening, Organic Insect Control, The Seasons, Vegetable Gardening
Cozying up by the Fire: Kitchen – Gardening Guide Books to Give or Get…
My favorite place to read: beside a glowing fire… The photograph above was taken last night from a favorite old chair, where I will be spending my leisure hours reading during the months of January and February. And although a few calendar weeks remain until winter officially begins in the northern hemisphere, I have already started […]
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Apples, Books, Cookbooks, Cooking, Orchards / Orchard Keeping, Recipes, Vegetable Gardening
Holiday Brunch from the Kitchen Garden and Local Orchard…
Heirloom Lady Apple and Yukon Gold Potato Fry… Anticipation is in the air. Twinkling lights. Aromatic, evergreen boughs. Crackling fires. Stories. There are so many simple things to love about the coming holiday season and winter months. For me, late morning breakfasts always top the December weekend-pleasures list. After a busy year, doesn’t it feel […]
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Christmas Trees, Conifers, Holiday Decorating, Plant Spotlight, Tree Farms, Trees, Woodland plants, Woody Plants
Holiday Traditions: Visiting a Tree Farm Guest Post by Nanette Pigaga…
The Forest Illuminated, Photograph © 2009 Michaela at The Gardener’s Eden I have never been much of a Black Friday enthusiast. Frankly, I would rather snuggle up by a cozy fire with a good book, or a notebook and pen, listening to Erik Satie and sipping hot, mulled cider. But if you are going out today, […]
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Candles, Indoor Table Arrangements, Late Autumn Garden, Lighting, Plants for Texture, Uncategorized
Bringing Nature’s Beauty Indoors: Creating a Festive Mood at the Holiday Dinner Table with Candles and Natural Treasures…
Bittersweet and floating votive candles… As we begin celebrating the holidays this season, our attentions turn toward the table, where we gather to celebrate and give thanks. Now that I have finished shopping for tomorrow’s Thanksgiving feast, I am beginning to play with some seasonal arrangements to greet my guests and illuminate the dining area. […]
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flowering shrubs, Garden Design, Garden Design Photos, Late Autumn Garden, Native Plants, Naturalistic Garden Design, Plant Science, shrubs, Shrubs for fall color, Shrubs with Colorful Twigs/Stems, Woody Plants
On a Cold, Wet November Morning the Red Twigs of Tartarian Dogwood are Still Burning Bright…
Tartarian dogwood, (Cornus alba ‘Sibirica’), at Ferncliff in November… There’s nothing like a dose of brilliant scarlet color to lift the spirits in dreary weather! On this damp, grey November morning, the twigs of Tartarian dogwood glow like red-hot embers in a bonfire. Isn’t it spectacular? Nature can be quite the artiste! This glorious woody […]
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Gardening Inspiration, Late Autumn Garden, Reflections, Trees, Water Features
The Empty Garden…
Autumn’s mirror… The remains of a summer nest, now silent and still… One evening last week a storm rolled in, and continued throughout the night. In the morning, when I woke, I found a different landscape. The trees all shook their leaves – dramatic and swift. Skeletons now stand where brightly colored canopies once filled […]
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Aletha Soule, Flower arrangements, Holiday Decorating, Indoor Table Arrangements, Richard Foye, Urns and Vessels, Vases
Bringing Nature’s Beauty Indoors: Decorating for the Holidays with Winterberry, Pine Cones, Bittersweet and Natural Garden Remnants…
Winterberry branches, in a modern glass vase, beside my painting studio door One of my favorite ways to prepare for the Thanksgiving holiday is to decorate my home and studio with natural remnants from my garden. At the end of my day yesterday afternoon, I stopped along the bank of the Connecticut river and gathered […]
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Art Inspired by Nature, Artful Garden Objects, Conservatory, Garden Visits, Green House Gardens, House Plants, Indoor Gardening, Pots, Pots and Pottery, Virginia Wyoming Pottery
Art Inspired by Nature: The Colorful, Botanical World of Artist and Gardener Virginia Wyoming…
Virginia Wyoming holds one of her beautiful stoneware flowerpots, etched with grass-like markings and finished with a multilayered earth-green glaze… Virginia Wyoming’s studio lies at the far end of a long and winding, interrupted road in Westminster, Vermont. When I say interrupted, I mean that the road literally stops midway, broken by forest. Naturally I […]
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Autumn Color in the Garden, Ferncliff, flowering shrubs, Late Autumn Garden, Native North American Woodlands, Native Plants, Shrubs for fall color
Must be the Season of the Witch Alder : The Spellbinding Late Autumn Color of Fothergilla…
Witch Alder, (Fothergilla major, ‘Mt. Airy’), in the sunny entry garden in mid November; luminous against the Secret Garden wall… Oh, would you look at this beauty. Look at the magical, bright orange and yellow color, glowing in the grey November light. Is it any wonder they named her Witch Alder? She’s completely enchanting. All […]
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Apples, Garden Design, Garden Science, Gardening Inspiration, Orchards / Orchard Keeping, soil science, Trees
In a Golden Orchard, Dreaming …
A 100-hundred-year-old orchard in Vermont, with restoration pruning The un-restored lower section of the same orchard … Lovely place for an afternoon stroll, isn’t it? Yesterday I found myself with an extra hour of time around sunset, and I decided to go for a walk in this old apple grove surrounded by golden fields near […]
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Apples, Cocktails, Cooking, Orchards / Orchard Keeping, Recipes
Grey and Chilly? Got the Autumn Blues? Spice Up Your Afternoon with Hot Mulled Apple Cider, Or Spike It Up Come Evening If You Choose …
A cup of hot, mulled apple cider, garnished with a stick of cinnamon and a slice of orange, studded with fragrant clove… It’s the middle of November now, and there’s a sharp nip in the air by late afternoon. The sky is often streaked with slate colored clouds, and the sun, when it makes an […]
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Apples, Art Inspired by Nature
Art Inspired by Nature: The Apple of Our Eye…
Lord Fredrick Leighton, The Garden of the Hesperides, 1892 This week’s topic on The Gardener’s Eden is heirloom apples. So in keeping with this theme, today’s edition of ‘Art Inspired by Nature’ focuses on the apple in Western art. A fruit of temperate regions throughout the world, the apple has been cultivated by humans since prehistoric times. Malus sieversii, […]
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Apples, Cooking, Heirloom Apples, Orchards / Orchard Keeping, Recipes
Rustic, Heirloom Apple Squares: A Recipe and Sweet Autumn Memory…
Served warm with a cup of steaming tea, apple squares can bring back a rush of sweet memories for me. When I was a little girl, my third grade teacher always made homemade goodies for special events and bake sales. Margaret was a lovely woman; plump and grandmotherly and generous. She was my favorite teacher, […]
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Apples, Cooking, Heirloom Apples, Orchards / Orchard Keeping, Recipes
Original Sin? Getting My Fill of Old World Temptations and Pleasures in the Apple Orchard at Scott Farm…
Heirloom apples from Scott Farm, Vermont Apples. They certainly are beautiful and tempting. But sinful? Hardly. Although, to tell the truth, I’ve always had a secret, flirtatious ‘thing’ for orchards. Maybe it all started with those stories about wickedness and pleasure in the Garden of Eden. You know, forbidden fruit and all that? Who knows […]
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Bee Keeping/Products/Info, Beneficial Animals and Insects, Insects/Entomology, Native Plants
Announcing Collaborative Work with The Honey Bee Conservancy: A New Series of Guest Posts Begins…
I have recently been invited to guest-post a series of articles on gardening with bees in mind for The Honeybee Conservancy blog. The first installation, supporting pollinators by planting native plants, posted today. You can read the article by clicking here. Honeybees as a species predate human beings by tens of millions of years, and […]
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annuals, Garden Maintenance, Garden Science, Organic Disease Control, organic gardening, soil science, Vegetable Gardening
Rich, Beautiful, Dreamy Dirt…
A nice delicious bowl of…. dirt? Has someone been making mud-pies? Sometimes I think I got into gardening because I never grew up. Yes, I know, that is a silly photo. But I couldn’t help myself. All the cooking blogs and magazines showcase gorgeous, slightly-off center bowls filled with the most mouthwatering food. So I […]
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Discovering the Botany of Desire…
The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s Eye View of the World Like most people, I am a fairly busy person, and I don’t have a great deal of time to wander about bookstores – especially during the growing season. In fact, most of my reading over the past few summers has been limited to the […]
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Art Inspired by Nature, David Holzapfel
Art Inspired by Nature: The Sensual Work of Sculptor and Furniture Maker David Holzapfel…
Tutuila, 23″ x 15″, walnut/spalted yellow birch This week’s edition of ‘Art Inspired by Nature‘ features the work of talented Vermont artist David Holzapfel. But before I begin to write about David and his process, I have to get something off my chest – a confession, so to speak. You see, when I first spotted […]
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Autumn Color in the Garden, Ferncliff, flowering shrubs, Garden Design, Garden Design Photos, Gardening Inspiration, Late Autumn Garden, Native Plants, Naturalistic Garden Design, Perennials for Autumn, Planting Techniques, Plants for Light Effects, Plants for Texture, shrubs, Shrubs for fall color, Shrubs with Colorful Twigs/Stems, Winter Garden
Late Autumn Texture Studies, Part Two: Plants that Play with Low Light…
The native forest on an early November morning… The light of late autumn is pure poetry – bathing the forest in bronze radiance. In the early morning fog, dark, vertical tree trunks move in and out of focus; playing off the back-light and textural forest tapestry. A walk through the woods reveals stunning seasonal change […]
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