In the Garden

Winter blues?

Terry OShaughnessy — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 01:10:54 -0500

My mother reported some very big news this week: shoots coming through the ground of her side garden. Green ones – just like in summer. With all due respect to the month of March, could spring really come early this year?

A dose for your flowers

Terry OShaughnessy — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 23:46:27 -0500

I bought some cut flowers the other day, and was just about to open the little packet of stuff that is supposed to prolong their blooms when I suddenly remembered my grandmother putting an aspirin in the vases of her flowers. So I opened the bottle and added an aspirin to the water. I must say the flowers look fabulous--but why? What is it about aspirin that flowers like?

Planting the seed

Terry OShaughnessy — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 11:18:09 -0500

From a Scarlet Pimpernel to a Captain-of-the-Blues to a Poached Egg Flower, it’s time to start choosing the seeds (old-fashioned heirloom ones like these, if you like) to grow indoors and be ready for planting out May 24 or thereabouts.

Be a tiger for your Valentine

Terry OShaughnessy — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 23:25:31 -0500

February 14 not only celebrates Valentine’s Day this year, it also brings in the Chinese New Year when the Year of the Tiger will pounce onto the scene, necessitating that you bring some growing bamboo, a.k.a. "lucky" bamboo, into your household and say goodbye to last year’s lumbering Ox.

Garden navel gazing

Terry OShaughnessy — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 23:33:16 -0500

Last week I asked myself why I liked to garden, and my answer was about as clear as mud. But maybe it's too hard to articulate. Maybe it’s more a case of actions speak louder than words.

Why do we garden?

Terry OShaughnessy — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 21:29:59 -0500

I’ve been wondering: Why do we garden? Is it a need to connect with nature? Or, is it something we think we should want to do? Or, is it, I wonder, an urge to create order out of chaos – a control freak kind of impulse if ever there was one?

The prim rose actually a shady lady

Terry OShaughnessy — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 23:22:27 -0500

With 300 days or so of January still left to go, I needed something green and growing. Something spring-y. And so I decided on a primrose – because when I saw it with its velvety crimson blooms with yolk yellow centres, it didn't look prim in the least.

No-fuss gardening

Terry OShaughnessy — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 23:08:43 -0500

When I woke up the other morning and shuffled downstairs to make coffee, I was amazed to find that unexpected flowers had bloomed overnight. My rosemary plant from last summer, safely brought into the house before the first frost, had two or three fragile mauve blossoms spangling its spiky aromatic branches.

The bare bones of the matter

Terry OShaughnessy — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 13:28:06 -0500

Though winter has definitely arrived, maybe gardening is not yet over for the season. Because with snow covering the grass, and all the flowers and foliage vanished for another year, I have a birds-eye view of the bare bones of my garden.

Here comes the sun

Terry OShaughnessy — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 11:42:18 -0500

A sigh of relief went out from every gardener this week as the winter solstice was observed—the shortest, darkest day of every year. Because now we know, in theory at least, that the days are getting longer again, and brighter. We can at least now say that we are on the same “side” as spring, even as the snow banks get higher.