Author Archives: talesofanashvillegardener

Though I have left crape myrtles, ginger lilies, and cannas behind, there are some favorites from the South I could not give up, even if I have to keep them in containers and have them shipped from Louisiana or California. Here are the salvias,ever-blooming and ignored by deer and woodchucks. This is “Cold Hardy Pink”,Continue reading “Blooming in Mid-June”

Across the road, down from Dunn Cottage and its daffodils, is a small conservation area. Naturalized lupines are blooming there now, and I stopped to take pictures. Anyone who thinks to pick these or dig them out, would see, as they grow closer that these flowers are surrounded by “Leaves of three, Let it be!”.Continue reading “Lupines in Dunbarton”

I found several fine specimens of Oenothera biennis, the tall evening primrose, growing in a ragged section of the lawn. I wanted them for the new dry border so I dug them out, potted them up, and put them on a shady porch to wait out transplant shock. Then I went onto the Internet whereContinue reading “Tall Evening Primrose”

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”