Community Garden Tour

This was the year to go overboard with weeding and mulching. I had agreed to be a part of the community garden tour along with 7 other families. The timing was off for a few plants in the garden. This white clematis was glorious for several weeks, but it didn't stay in bloom quite long enough...

On the other hand, the Jackmani clematis bloomed just in time to share the purple limelight with the pale lavender hosta blooms and dark delphinium.

The delphinium tend to get top heavy and flop over. Here Mary is trying to prop up one of the flower stalks.

The bucket of red zinnias, rather than clashing, seemed to liven up the shades of purple. Mother Nature's colors always look good.

The peonies by this sitting rock had finished flowering by the time of the tour, but... 

 ...daylilies bloomed in their place. Visitors usually are fascinated by the outcropping of rocks that form the shallow cave in the background above. This area is actually part of my shade garden.

Bee balm is in its glory...

For those who followed the tour map in order, my home was number 5. Jack and Linda Weltner dropped by to welcome early guests before going on the tour themselves. Over 60 people visited during the day.

I was pretty pooped when the Weltners returned for dinner and Rummykub. Linda won 4 games in a row! That had to have been a record for her.

Here Jack is filling up jugs with water to take back to their camp site.

On Sunday those of us who had had our gardens on the tour got to have our own tour of each others' gardens.

We were to meet at the village green at 10 AM, but I planned to first have breakfast with Jack and Linda at their place in the woods.

It's really 2 enclosed lean-tos put together. The windows were once glass shelves in a jewelry store that closed up shop.

 

Here is Jack in the "kitchen" with my breakfast plate of eggs, toast, and bacon.

Dishes and cookware are kept in the hanging milk crates. This year they have added a ceramic sink. Water from their stream gets heated at the open fireplace and poured into the sink where the dishes then are washed. Afterwards, the plug gets pulled and the water drains onto the ground.

 Linda is joining us for breakfast. She had woken up at 5 AM and stayed up for awhile to write the beginning of a play which she read to us while we ate at the picnic table.

We only had time for one game of Rummykub and I don't even remember who won. It was time to race off for my garden tour.

Jeb Porter, who has done all of my stone walls, and his dog, were already waiting for our group to gather...

Our group of gardeners didn't follow the map, but instead began with my gardens and then drove down the hill to the Leonard's place.

Phil and Mary Leonard split their year between Vermont and Arizona. A path leads past the orange daylilies to the stream below their deck. Their property is rather narrow and has several levels alongside the road.

I especially like the serpentine stone wall that Jeb repaired and improved for them...

The Leonard's had been house #7 and from there we drove to see the vegetable gardens at #6. Jim and Monique have a whole yard of Bishops Weed that they want to get rid of. I picked up some tips on getting rid of mine!

I also found out that they are having success growing sweet potatoes. I didn't think sweet potatoes would have a long enough season in Vermont, but I now know which variety to order. Something new for next year!

On to #8...

Absolutely stunning!

This is an almost level property so the McGrath's have used man-made objects to help define a variety of garden "rooms"...  They also seem to love funky bird houses!

Many of the plantings were striking to look at because they were a mass of one particular flower and color...

Recently they created a garden by their stream.

 We left #8 to move on to #1 which is fairly close to the center of Belmont. The house overlooks Star Lake and the garden is partially hidden from the road by an old barn.

They created a pond with stone walls and a patio. It was very nice, but Jeb didn't do this stone work and we could see the difference.

From here we went to Jeb's house...

This pond did not exist when Jeb built his house. Because he is on a hill, he wanted some flat land in the front of his place so he began removing dirt from this part of the hillside...took it down to the bare rock and discovered a spring. He swims laps in his pool almost every day from June to frost...

 When it rains, his rock becomes a waterfalls.

Jeb will be digging a series of ponds in my field. I have the source of water, but I don't have his wonderful rock. It will be interesting to see what we will be able to create...

We then moved on the Marcy and Andy Tanger's home where weeds and flowers co-mingled in what Marcy calls "English garden-like profusions"...

I have a few British friends who might take exception to Marcy's description, but the chaos did have a charm of its own and her Jackmani clematis outdid mine. By this time we had been walking through gardens for over 3 hours and I was beat. Jeb and his dog had traveled with me but, since both of us had previously seen the last garden, I gave him a lift back to his own car by the village green and headed home for a late lunch...

A Funky Gazebo

 This sign on the Belmont village green tells the story of spring...

At my home the beavers added to our wetness by raising the water level of the pond, which in turn raised the water table and made it impossible to even walk on the lower lawn.

 We widened the lower entrance to our field and then laid crushed stone to make it passable.

Jeb was finally able to bring the large stones to the gazebo...

 I had been at the cottage, but Griff called to say Jeb had arrived so I raced home for the day...

Griffin painted the gazebo trim the dark purple I had used for the trim in my bedroom.

Jeb also redid the trench around the bottom and far side of the field. As he worked his way up the side of the field the puddles that had been on the grass disappeared. Things got a bit drier...

Jeb left a few stones behind. In the background is a wall of dirt from the trench he dug. We'll use it to help raise the level of the lower field, but that's a project for after the community garden tour...

Memorial Day at the Cottage

On Saturday, May 25th, Margery and I headed for our favorite plant sale in Woodstock, VT. We take her truck because we fill it with inexpensive plants that come out of the Woodstock Garden Club members' gardens. Fortunately, they don't have to be planted again right away. That left me free to go to the cottage on Sunday. Gregg, Sarah and Ursula were already there.

It snowed on my newly purchased plants. This is snow on William...proof of a cold spring.

It was also cold at the cottage...bearable by the time I arrived with Ursula's birthday gifts because Gregg had both the gas heater on and the fireplace crackling. 

One birthday gift included a wheelchair, crutches, and broken bone casts that fit her 18 inch dolls.

Here is the bunk bed, also for her 18 inch dolls, but it's the dolls' dolls that are on the bed.

 While playing Rummykub Sunday evening, we heard a loud thunk outside and knew another tree had "hit the dust." We soon discovered that it had also blocked my car from leaving the yard...

No amount of cold weather or fallen trees was going to keep Gregg, Sarah and Ursula from enjoying Lake George...out came the kayaks! Ursula now has one of her own that she sits ON, not in...

The red-roofed building in the background is the boathouse where my family has gone swimming since 1914...

An optical illusion...the dock is not really curved!

Back in Belmont the snow had disappeared. This is a plant that no one else wanted at an orchid auction Margery took me to last year. It has totally surprised me with blooms.

Usually it sits in the kitchen window.

I knew it wasn't an orchid, but have recently learned it is a calanchoe and should bloom once a year.

 

And there is my small gazebo, the newest addition to the yard. Now I have a place to rest in the shade, drink some water, and think about the next thing that needs doing in the vegetable gardens.

One project seems to always lead to another. Now I need a stone wall to hold the pile of small stones that create a level place for the gazebo! Otherwise everything will slowly slide down the hill.

Another nice thing...beavers have returned to the pond. We enjoy watching them, as do our neighbors, but the beavers have also created a need for several projects! More on this in future posts...stay tuned.

Spring Gardens

The garden shed in the background is built from doors that once were part of the house...

Bob brought Margery a truckload of horse manure to improve her garden soil. The next morning we picked up a load of bark mulch for my gardens.

Two years ago that much mulch quickly disappeared into the garden beds, but the plants have been spreading and this time we may have some mulch left over.

And there's my car with all its bumper stickers...so far it's still a legal form of free speech.

When William and I built the house, we didn't know what to do with an old stained glass window, so it became part of the garage. The dogwood tree shouldn't get tall enough to block any sun from reaching the solar panels...

These blooms are the reason I had a roof built that covers this rhododendron in the winter.

This is a hardy kiwi that I prune to practically nothing each fall. By the time we want shade on the porch from the summer sun, the kiwi becomes a thick mass.

Unfortunately, I thought it was a female kiwi and planted a couple of male kiwis so it would produce fruit. Now I have 3 male kiwi vines and nothing to eat for my efforts.

To the left is the Ballou "cave"...unlike Blanot's grotte, it isn't tourist-worthy. Jake is checking out some earthy smell. The window is part of my nook so I can see this area when I am at my desk.

When the rhododendron passes, then the hardy geranium blooms. As fall approaches the Autumn Joy sedum will steal the show. It will also end up in teachers' vases.

Instead of climbing, this white clematis prefers to drape itself over the retaining wall...

I planted this dianthus last summer as an annual. It hardly bloomed, but this year it surprised me by returning with a vengeance.

Jerusalem artichokes are growing in the background. They will have wonderful yellow flowers in the fall.

Along with rhubarb, I'm growing small gourds in the front bed. They'll be for the teachers when I have no more flowers for their vases.

A close-up of the garden shed...