Author Archives: talesofanashvillegardener

The ground I garden on is the same ground that defeated New Englanders trying to farm and live on hillsides away from the fertile valleys of the Merrimack and Connecticut rivers. They abandoned their plots after the Civil War, and left for the more docile, welcoming soils of the Midwest. Always dry, this soil isContinue reading “New Hampshire Desert”

These Marsh Marigolds were blooming last month along a stream in New Boston. I had not seen this flower since I was a child, and I am now old. I was going to post this photo earlier, but spent April unnerved. Every week the plants I ordered in February and March came via UPS orContinue reading “Marsh Marigolds”

I am going to let these photos speak for themselves. They were taken on Gorham Pond Road . The site is Dunn Cottage.

When I began this blog last year I was staying with my sister on a hill south of Concord. I cleaned up and replanted her gardens, and added additional beds on the south west side of her house where her lawn jumps off into a goldenrod field below. I will be taking care of thisContinue reading “Intermission”

November is inching toward us, the sun is low behind the trees, nothing in the garden is left to bloom, and the news is jarring and surreal. And then we have this- on the CNN website- and I knew all was proceeding as planned. The Day of the Human will end, and the rats andContinue reading “It is not always about gardening- Today’s best Headline”

Having spent almost four decades living on limestone, I now live among a multitude of granite remnants scraped from the bedrock by glaciers and randomly dropped everywhere . Impediments to early settlers, who broke backs and plows moving them and stacking them into walls, they are merely picturesque to us, unless we are trying toContinue reading “A Granite Turtle”

There has been no frost on this hill to stop the zinnias, but they are in suspended animation from the chill and the very low sun that barely clears the trees. Still there is color. I did not grow bergenias in Nashville, though I once saw them along a shady path near the mansion atContinue reading “Late Color in the October Garden”

Asters are true companions to autumn leaves. The low light and chilled mornings that make Hostas yellow and shrivel are a spring to asters. “October Skies”, seen here in the worst and driest soil in this Bow garden, thrived in the equally awful dirt and inferno heat of Nashville. One plant from a 3.5 inchContinue reading “Last of the Last”

When I drove along Rockingham Street and Logging Hill Road the other morning, I saw frost damage in the gardens. There had been ice on my windshield when I left work at 7 and blackened plants were no surprise. The cold settled into the Merrimack Valley and the growing season ended for 2019. But notContinue reading “Frost”

The lilies of the field are now only the late asters-purple, blue, or white- and perhaps a stray Showy goldenrod. But in the garden, where frost has yet to visit, we have colors to match the leaves. These zinnias are a mixture of the common Cut and Cut Again variety and the “Lime Queen” series.Continue reading “Matching Colors”