Ornamental Japanese Maples are widely available for planting in your garden. The autumn colouring makes these trees spectacular when planted en mass in a woodland or Japanese garden setting.
21.07.2023 - 22:16 / awaytogarden.com
I’M ALREADY DREAMING about summertime containers each year, even before the first flat of spring’s pansies arrive in the local nurseries as winter fades. My extra-early visualizations often feature succulents—sculptural, low-care plants in a range of textures and colors—pots full of them, and maybe even a “wreath” (above) for the patio table. I knew Katherine Tracey of Avant Gardens Nursery in Massachusetts would be able to help me with how-to and succulent design ideas.Background: My keenest gardening friends–some really tough customers–make annual pilgrimages across Massachusetts to Dartmouth (not to be confused with the college in New Hampshire, but under an hour from Newport, and just a bit farther from Boston). They’d come back from Avant Gardens having outspent their budgets, with one gem after another packed into their cars.
I eventually called owners Katherine and Chris Tracey, plant collectors since the 1980s (who have in recent years become seasonal sponsors on A Way to Garden, too). Katherine says the nursery was born “when it really got out of control with our hobby.” They’ve got 25 years of nursery experience–selling both retail and mail-order—and a particular passion for foliage and especially succulents, two big loves of mine.
Listen to our entire conversation on my public-radio show and podcast using the player below (or read the recap of all the highlights I learned below). First recorded in 2013, it has become one of the most popular subjects on my website, year after year. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes or Spotify or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here).
Note: If you want to skip to the early spring succulent rehab tips for overwintered plants that may be all leggy, or
Ornamental Japanese Maples are widely available for planting in your garden. The autumn colouring makes these trees spectacular when planted en mass in a woodland or Japanese garden setting.
FOR THOSE OF YOU IN THE AREA, meaning the Hudson Valley of New York State or thereabouts, these spring events here in the garden and elsewhere may be of interest: Saturday March 14, Spring Garden Day, Cornell Cooperative Extension of Rensselaer County. (518) 272-4210. This popular, day-long annual event in Troy, New York, includes a choice of classes, from growing orchids at home to successful vegetable gardening.
EXPLODING Eremurus, why vulnerability is good for us, and the answer to why bird poop is white—all, and more, in the latest collections of links I’ve loved lately while staring into my computer screen (which I alternately do between long gazes out the window). Five links worth exploring:
Michael Wojtech of Know Your Trees dot com and author of “Bark: A Field Guide to Trees of the Northeast” (Amazon affiliate link) can answer those questions, plus this one: Can you actually learn to identify trees by their bark (an especially useful skill now through spring, when many are leafless)? Hint: The answer is yes.Michael left a 15-year business career to pursue his love of natural history and writing, and earned his Master’s in Conservation Biology from Antioch University New England. His thesis, on tree bark, became the basis for the field guide. Though the book’s plant ID section covers trees of the Northeast, much of the ma
I PROMISED I WOULDN’T ADD EVEN AN EXTRA TRIP TO THE CURB WITH THE TRASH to my schedule, with all the mowing I have to do, but (big surprise) I layered on a couple of events, and I want to make sure you know about them, in case you are in the Hudson Valley/Berkshires vicinity this summer. Another container-gardening class, a 365-day garden lecture with an extra focus on water gardening and the frogboys, and a tour here in August (that last one you already might know about). Details, details:Sunday July 12, Containing Exuberance, container-gardening workshop, with Bob Hyland at Loomis Creek Nursery, near Hudson, New York, 11 AM to 1 PM, $5.
His garden was not so far away from where I live, and were he here to welcome spring this year, I suspect that he, too, would be hoping for the best while poking about in the dirt as he cleaned up the beds.Every spring since then, in memory of Geoffrey Charlesworth, and of all the garden’s great creatures who haven’t made it to the newest season, I make a tradition of sharing a poem of his: “Why Did My Plant Die?”more about geoffrey charlesworth‘WHY DID MY PLANT DIE?’ is just one piece of the wisd
I was already thinking about succulents, after writing a story about succulent-wreath how-to with Katherine Tracey of Avant Gardens. Remember? (That’s another of her creations up top: a box of succulents, meant to be hung vertically, like a framed mini wall garden. Here’s Katherine’s how-to on making a mini-wall garden.) Then during spring garden cleanup, I noticed that some Sedum ‘Angelina’ (a gold-colored, ferny-textured groundcover type) had fallen out of a big pot I’d placed on the terrace last summer, and planted itself in the gravel surface, and the surrounding stone wall. (Again, those succulent voices: “Hint. Hint.”)The next nudge came when I spontaneously pulled into a garden center last month—one I’d never been to—only to find an irresistibly low price on overstuffed pots of hens and chicks. I brought home a bunch.And then the final push: At Trade Secrets, the big annual benefit garden show held in nearby Sharon, Connecticut, it was as if someone had announced a theme: Every vendor seemed to be featuring succulents in one way or another.Dave Burdick (remember him?) of Daffodils and More in Dalton, Massachusetts, whose specialties include not just rare
When Katherine Tracey and her husband, Chris, aren’t manning Avant Gardens, their longtime retail and mail-order nursery in Dartmouth, Massachusetts–which I am proud is a sponsor of A Way to Garden, and a friend—they are out helping others make, and refine, their landscapes. Chris is a master dry-stone artisan, so his work is often one signature of their landscapes.The “sense of place” of the nursery (which is also their home), as Katherine describes it: “Intimate, but not fussy, with a wide variety of plants, but not one of this and one of that everywhere.”In a Q&A, Katherine and I talked about taking a sharper look at our home landscapes with an eye to enhancements.my garden-design q&a with katherine traceyQ. What are the most common reasons h
Now as a rural dweller I mostly talk to the birds outside, so Skype and phone sessions have to substitute. My friend Katherine Tracey and I got into it the other day–lots of, “Have you ever grown (fill in the blank)?” or, “Did you see the new color of (insert Latin plant name)?” and then wondering aloud if each one is really a good performer or not, and worth trying.I thought it would be fun to bring all of you into the conversation, too, so once you listen to our chat, tell us your own powerhouse plants, in the comments. Read along as you listen to the Feb. 15, 2016 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here).Background on
You may recall the popular interview Kathy and I did about looking at our own gardens with a critical eye to design improvements. (If not, it’s at this link.) We also spoke on my radio show and podcast on Oct. 13, 2014 about what to stash and how, and what to toss, just as temperature at her Massachusetts location at Avant Gardens and mine were flirting with the mid-30s at night.Plus: Links to in-depth articles by Kathy and by me on aspects of overwintering–from succulents to figs, and even if you started earlier by taking cuttings from things like coleus–are at the end of the page.overwintering q&a, with kathy traceyQ. I know you have greenhouses at Avant Gardens, but nobody h
Tovah is the author of more than a dozen garden books including “Tasha Tudor’s Garden” and “The New Terrarium” and the “The Unexpected Houseplant,” and her newest, “The Indestructible Houseplant” (Amazon affiliate links).Besides our love of begonias, Tovah (find her at her Plantswise Facebook page) and I share a commitment to organic garden practices, indoors and out,. And we are near-neighbors in the corner of the world where Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York’s borders come together.Tovah says she emerged from 25 years work
You may ask: Now why would I want to go to a talk about a historic and grand National Trust property situated in another climate altogether, a place long on fantastic walls and fountains, connecting outdoor “hallways,” magnificent topiaries, and hedges of box, hornbeam and yew? (As is probably the case in your garden, I have not one of those things here.)On a visit maybe 20 years ago, Hidcote was the initial place I saw such formal lines contrasted against a “jungle style of planting.” Even though each garden area is clearly enclosed and its shape well-defined, as in the famed Red Border up top, the plants in individual beds within each area were invited to just have at it, to spill out into the paths here and there, and to spill into one another in a riot of color, texture and intimate connection that’s both restrained and unrestrained all at once. Delightful.And then, it was this that made me perk up at news of the upcoming lecture:On Garden Conservancy Open Days at my