Tag archive: witch hazel

Garden Glimpses: First Stirrings

In the garden, March Madness has more to do with the weather than anything else.  One day it’s 72, the next night we’re down to 15 again.  Nature doesn’t seem to know which season it wants to be, and this dilatory musing can be a real challenge for the gardener intent on coaxing as much bloom as possible from the landscape.  Early heat can set tender buds to swelling, which later are subject to freezing if temps dip again, blighting the blossom and eliminating an entire season of bloom for some species.

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crocus mix3

Garden Glimpses: Spring Equinox

AAA kicks off a new department this month with “Garden Glimpses”, a photographic memoir of life here at what I affectionately term “Pokeberry Farm”, after our most prolific vegetative output (the pokeberry, AKA pokeweed, is a large native plant, sometimes up to 6 feet tall, with spreading branches bearing pendulous, almost grapelike bunches of purple-black fruits; birds prize these, and their droppings proliferate this invasive species all over the yard).  Over the past year I’ve chronicled each sabbat, or pagan festival, and have integrated my horticultural adventures within that seasonal framework.  But I have only so much to say about pagan holidays, whereas the garden is the gift that keeps on giving, so we’ll be morphing the original “House Diary” column into a more flora-focused one.  After all, with asteroid Gardner just a degree off my natal Sun, I’m only an “e” away from being the real thing!

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