Showing posts with label landscape gardener. Show all posts
Showing posts with label landscape gardener. Show all posts

Sunday, November 26, 2017

Evergreenss Light Up the Dark Season


When we built our house on a bare slope that had been a tobacco patch, I was eager to get some landscaping around it. Having little money and not much gardening experience, my first thought was to get some shrubs that would bloom.

Several friends and neighbors gave me offshoots from their own forsythia, mock orange, lilacs, and shrub roses and I scattered them about with a lavish hand.  



But come late Fall and Winter, my landscaping shrubs were mostly collections of gray-brown sticks -- not especially inspiring sticks. 


It wasn't till we'd been here almost fifteen years that I had access to plants at wholesale prices and, at the same time, discovered the wonderful varieties of evergreens available


I went a little wild.


But those evergreens -- all of which have  grown taller than I thought they would and need a lot of pruning -- are still a source of delight at this time of year, lighting up the front of the house with green and gold and silver.

Soon I'll begin cutting branches from them to decorate the house for Christmas . And I'll fill empty pots in our entryway with greenery -- to pull the eye from all those bare shrubs that are resting up for their big moment in the Spring.




Tuesday, November 25, 2008

You Meet the Most Interesting Folks . . .



A few days ago, on one of my posts, a comment showed up from Marta McDowell, a name previously unknown to me. Marta quoted Emily Dickinson and aroused my curiosity.

First I found her blog and her website (from which all these pictures are borrowed.) Those of you all who are gardeners or would-be gardeners or just like beautiful pictures and excellent writing owe it to yourselves to look at Marta's blog. Like me, she's fond of bugs and rocks and flowers. And she travels and photographs all sorts of interesting gardens.

Marta's website makes me wish I were closer to New Jersey where she teaches lots of interesting classes -- including wreath-making. A woman after Elizabeth's heart. And mine.



But, alas, I won't be traveling to NJ for classes. I will, however, put this gorgeous book that Marta co-authored on my Christmas wish list. It's on Amazon and you can look at a few pages to get a sense of the lovely writing and the amazing arted-up photo/collages.



Below is Marta's deer fence. I have to admit to a severe case of envy. But as my garden is a great deal larger than my budget, such a fence is nowhere in its future.



I emailed Marta to ask permission to talk about her and use her pictures and to ask how she stumbled on my blog. Turns out an Elizabeth fan (also named Elizabeth) in Hendersonville is a friend of hers and sent her the link.

Worldwide web, indeed!

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