How Owl Hollow Got its Name

An old high school friend of mine was up visiting from New Jersey many years ago. She is an enthusiastic gardener and loves to get an outdoor tour of the garden when she's up.

While we walked around, she remarked, "Boy, you sure have a lot of birds around here."

"Yes," I agreed, "I like to feed them in summer because I get a lot of birds I don't see in winter."

We continued talking, and she confidently told me that where she lives in Rockaway, New Jersey, she has a lot of owls. I raised my eyebrows a bit, maybe because I know owls do not form flocks!

"Really?" I said. Do you see them?"

"No, but I hear them all the time."

Later in the day, we were outside again, and this time a pair of mourning doves cooed above us as they perched in the sugar maple.

"Fran, is that what the owls sound like at your house?," I asked.

"Yes, yes, that's it! Exactly like that," she said excitedly.

Trying not to smile too broadly, I gently explained that what she was hearing was mourning doves, not owls. I pointed to the tree branch above us.

Fran was visibly disappointed, but I have to admit to having a really good chuckle at her expense. In fact, the memory of this exchange makes me smile every time I think of it, and so I decided to name my property Owl Hollow, as a perennial tribute to my friend's lack of ornithological knowledge.

Juneberry Mystery

Healthy June berry on left;

struggling June berry at right, with blue deer fencing.

This is a story of two juneberries, purchased at the same time about eight years ago from my favorite nursery, St. Lawrence, in upstate New York.

For most of their time here, both seedlings have languished. They survived, but despite various descriptions I've read of their "pest-free" disposition, they struggled with an annual, early spring infestation of small, black inchworms which used the leaves to wrap themselves tightly in pencil-shaped cocoons. This left the trees defoliated.

The seedlings remained stunted at about four feet high, small enough that I could painstakingly unwrap each leaf and hand-pick the worms. Still, the trees suffered.

Last year, one of the seedlings took off. I don't know what happened, but it experienced a growth spurt and actually now looks like an attractive young tree at about eight feet high. Yet the other seedling remains stunted.

Even more curious, last spring I found the stunted tree was again beset by those little black worms. The healthy tree was not, even while it stands just five feet away!

Yesterday, I noticed another oddity: The healthy tree is leafing out now, but its blossoms are still not ready to bloom. The stunted tree IS in bloom and has only a handful of its leaves unfurled. You would think both trees would follow the same pattern of either leafing out first, or blooming first.

This is the healthy tree, not at all ready to bloom
but sporting plenty of foliage.

This is the stunted tree, in full bloom but with just a handful of leaves unfurled.

What gives?

I have been watching both my bluebird boxes but have been somewhat concerned to see no activity. Imagine my surprise when I approached the one box and saw that it was so stuffed with nest building materials that it was actually pushing the front-facing door open at the bottom!

Still, I've seen no activity at the box. From the messy look of the nest, I'm guessing it's house wrens. I know that some birds build more than one nest and the female makes the final selection. I do hope this was not a reject nest.

Yesterday was another day of satisfying yard work achievements. I finished turning over sod where my expanded vegetable garden will be located, let the sun dry the overturned clods and, later in the day, began shaking out the loose soil, squashing cutworm grubs as I found them.

I also make good progress continuing to clear out invasives....Japanese barberry, Asian bittersweet and burning bush, mainly... on the north side, in the area where I discovered, rescued and fenced off two cherry tree volunteers. I think I also spotted at least one June berry volunteer and there are certainly more cherry tree seedlings in there. There's still much work to be done, but with shovel, loppers and a misplaced set of hand shears, I am making headway.

I also pulled out batches of garlic mustard as I found it. I've said before, simply controlling the spread of invasives could take up all my time in the yard. Sadly, it will be impossible to ever totally eradicate them.

Still no sign of returning hummers at the feeder. My first spring sighting last year was April 24...that will be this Saturday.

Ahh, so much to do. I have a corkscrew willow I want to transplant. I had planted two of them in an area that gets plenty of moisture, but not so much sun. They want more sun. I'm also itching to pull out another largish patch of pachysandra near the snowball hydrangea tree and sun room, but I will need things to plant there after the pachysandra comes out or I will have created yet another weeding chore for myself.

I'd like to finish up readying the expanded veggie garden and plant my potatoes and put up a second pole support for the beans. I saved some relatively straight, seven-foot-long pruned branches from my winter's work on the giant burning bush and found it fairly easy to create a tripod support for beans by tying the top ends together and sinking the ends in the ground.

Happy gardening!

Springtime Projects

Peonies: Not a native, but still a trouble-free and attractive plant.

Soon, the peonies will fill out this garden bed.

Knowing that a rainy weekend was in the forecast, I set about last Thursday to finish one of my many current "projects:" raking out the area in front of the forsythia (a space about three feet wide and 20 feet long) to plant (horrors!) grass seed. The forsythia threatened to close off the walkway between them and the large rhododendron in the backyard.

So I pulled up the last of the expanding forsythia plants. (They came up more easily than expected when pulled by hand.) I used a hard rake to gather up all the cuttings on the ground, raked them onto a tarp and hauled away three tarp-fulls to a dumping area for brush behind the tool shed. It's not feasible nor practical to try to haul this little stuff to the landfill, not without a pickup, anyway.

Not wanting to chance sowing grass seed that wouldn't germinate (the stuff in my garage was dated 2001), I ran down to Ace for a new bag of the stuff, passing by the pricey Scott's grass seed for the more reasonably priced no-name variety ($6). Grass seed is grass seed, right? But Ace didn't have any hay bales, and since I have lots of birds around that will likely eat up that grass seed, I headed down to Agway for the hay bale ($9, ouch) and then to Ring's End, for 4 7-foot-high metal stakes, needed for my expanded veggie garden.

I got the grass seed down, and then the hay, spread thinly. I also reseeded a smaller area of lawn directly under the bird feeder. It wasn't the sunflower seed that killed the grass there, it was damaged when I had my brick patio expanded a few years ago. I thought weeds would just fill in the bare spots (as long as it's green), but that didn't really happen, so....

I also got my hummer sugar water feeder out and hanging. Seems to me I recall the male hummers returning as early as mid-April, and since it's still quite chilly these nights, I wanted to make sure the welcome mat was out and hanging when the little guys return. I just checked my Nature Journal...yup, in 2007, my first hummer sighting was on April 25.

I keep feeling like I am SO far behind on spring vegetable planting when I read other gardening blogs. (I have 49 bookmarked and usually go through all of them a few times a week....it's very inspiring.) However, I have to remind myself the average last frost date here in western Connecticut is May 15. I do plan, however, to plant my lettuce plugs and spinach tomorrow and hope for the best.

I'm not sure what others do, but on relatively warm days, I've been shuffling all my little seedlings outside to a sunny spot, then bring them back in at night before it gets too cold. It can be a little tedious.

The crab apples are ready to bloom.

Any day now...

While in Wal-Mart today, I spotted a cardboard bin of Elephant Ear tubers. This is something I wanted to try this year after seeing another blogger's photos. They look so lush and tropical. I don't think you can overwinter them, but I plan to investigate that at some point. So I bought two tubers for $3 each and hope to pot them up this week.

I am still on the hunt for reasonably-priced Fox Valley river birch and I wouldn't mind getting a native honeysuckle.

Woodchucks, Turkey & Manure, Oh My!

This is the time of year I usually make my first woodchuck sighting. Sometimes, I see more than one.... babies. I've been figuratively holding my breath because I hadn't seen any. Until two days ago. Sigh. I spotted him off in the distance, foraging contentedly on my neighbor's lawn. Let's hope the furry guy stays there. In the woodchuck's eyes, I have already "ruined" two good burrows: one behind the massive thicket of forsythia I just recently hacked back, and one in a brushy area on the other side of the house which is now more exposed than before.

There was another, more welcome visitor to Owl Hollow yesterday. Luther and Waldo saw their first ever wild turkey, and he saw them as well. In fact, as they peered at him through the sun room windows, Luther's tail a twitching wildly, the not diminutive-sized turkey approached the windows as close as five feet, clucking and tilting his head this way and that. Was he trying to determine if the cats were a threat? Was he just curious? I guess I can't know for sure, but after a good 10 minutes of clucking on the one side and twitching on the other, he pecked at a few sunflower seed shells below the bird feeder and then ambled up the back slope, eventually hopping a stone wall and disappearing into the neighbor's yard.

This past weekend, I headed down to the Second Company Governor's Horse Guard for some free manure. I grabbed 2 or 3 buckets as I headed out the door and had to ask at the stables where the manure was piled. I followed a paved road past the fields.


The road soon deteriorated into a badly gullied gravel road which led me to a massive pile of aged manure so high it completely shielded from view the other gardeners and their cars. The manure, I was told, was five years old, and I couldn't believe how great it looked: rich, dark loam with no odor and no indication it had ever been manure. This stuff is black gold!


One of the volunteers invited me to come back for more, and indeed, I made two more trips with more buckets, my recycling container, a cement mixing basin and as many other receptacles as I could fit in my car. It was well worth the small donation they asked for!

I have started expanding my vegetable garden. When finished, it will expand my space by approximately 50%. Right now, I'm turning over sod and letting the sun dry it out before shaking out all the dirt. It's back-breaking work.

But I had another thought. Now that I'm done cutting back the forsythia...

...the next step there is to rake out the new space now covered in debris and pruned branches. I never thought I'd hear myself saying this, but I want to plant grass (!) in that area to widen the pathway between the forsythia and the rhododendron.

I test-planted a handful of grass seed I had on hand to see if it would sprout. I'm embarrassed to say the seed is from 2001, so I'm guessing it won't germinate too well. But a quicker way toward a green lawn would be to simply dig up the sod from my expanding vegetable garden, drop it in pieces into the wheelbarrow and bring it to the southwest corner where the forsythia are. It will help me accomplish two purposes more quickly.

In the meantime, I'm trying to get through my inaugural mowing, but I forgot that my battery-operated mower (yes, my third season using it on 1.5 acres) doesn't do well with high, dense grass, and while at least 50% of my "lawn" is a variety of wild violets and other "weeds," there are some areas of lawn that are already overgrown grass. The mower konks out and and the total amount of lawn area I get cut is drastically reduced. So this was my second day of mowing and still I'm not done with the front yard.

One of my weaknesses is wandering around the yard, discovering some little "project" that needs doing, and dropping other things already in progress to tend to the new chore. Such was the case yesterday when I observed bittersweet and multi-flora rose taking over my clethra (summersweet), over by the back corner of the tool shed. So, donning Deet-sprayed, knee-high rubber boots but forgetting my gloves(!!), I waded into the overgrowth, clipping things as I went to clear a tick-free path for myself in order to access the clethra. I ran into bittersweet everywhere, yanking things out for some time before noticing something burgundy-colored and ominous sending six-inch shoots straight up out of the leaf litter. Poison ivy! Despite washing my hands with Tec-Nu (which I highly recommend), I already have some spots rising on my skin, but that, I'm pretty sure, is from an earlier exposure when I cleared the brush from around my cherry trees. (I was wearing gloves then!)

I did a decent, but not complete job of clearing some of the vines away. Unfortunately, some of them were growing right at the bases of the clethra, and digging them out would injure the clethra. It would also require me to crawl in there and brush my head against all sorts of stuff, and I'm too tick-paranoid to do that.

I note with some satisfaction that the clethra is spreading.

The Wild Garden

Doesn't everyone have some corner of their yard that resists all attempts to tame and control? Like an unruly child, my 'wild garden' requires constant vigilance, and while it stubbornly demands my attention with threats of truly returning to the wild, I have yet to coax it into submission, even after 15 years at Owl Hollow.

I spent a good part of yesterday pulling out thorny brambles that had a field day last summer as they spread throughout this wild garden of mine, a 20 x 40 foot fenced-in plot on the north side of the house. It's always the last priority, after mowing, weeding and tending to other perennial beds and general yard work. And last year, for the first time, I didn't touch it at all. My experience with Lyme Disease (twice) has made me very cautious about tangling with overgrown areas that brush against your arms or sides, or gets in your hair.

But... this seemed like a good time to do battle with the brambles, as they're just starting to leaf out. Wait much longer and they'll be too much to handle.

Even wearing a double set of work gloves didn't prevent me from absorbing an invisible pricker in my finger, right at the get go. Still, I worked on, systematically trimming back the long, arcing branches, then using a shovel to bring the bramble up from the soil, then yanking it free at the roots with my (gloved) hands.

As I worked, the builder who did such a nice job with my sun room last year made a surprise appearance after being a no-show this past weekend, so since he was working in the same area as me, we chatted as we worked. I'm paying him to reposition the outlet pipe from my sump pump to allow for better drainage. I also asked him to block off two old, below-grade window wells with cinder blocks and cement.

Back to the wild garden. I have a host of nice plants in there, but it all gets so overgrown with weeds each summer it just gets beyond me. I'm thinking I might be better off to plant grass in and around what's there now, and just plan on maintaining it by mowing. Ironically, there was a beautiful bed of grass there when I bought the place, but I set about to dig it all up immediately because I had the naive notion that, already fenced in, it lent itself to becoming a picturesque, idyllic garden.

Here's what's growing there now: 5 high bush blueberry, 3 "dwarf" cherry trees (now in bloom and about 10 feet high), a large willow shrub that needs shaping, a spreading gooseberry, a rapidly growing mulberry tree (a volunteer from a few years ago), lady's mantle, bleeding heart, columbine, hostas, astilbe, Jacob's ladder and wild oats that are showing signs of becoming invasive. Most anything I plant there seems to thrive, maybe a little too much.

Years ago, I laid a rectangular brick walkway about 2 feet wide, planting shade-loving perennials outside the walkway. They enjoyed the shade cast by the house and 2-story high rhododendrons. On the inside of the walkway went the cherry trees, a bird bath and assortment of other things over the years, including some asparagus that I believe has finally been wiped out by the ever-expanding willow. However, the waist-high picket fence doesn't deter deer or woodchucks and, being on the north side, not all portions of the spot get as much sunlight as would be desirable.

It just seems like one invasive or another gets in there and tries to take over. For a while, the black-eyed Susies were really spreading, though I didn't mind that too much. Last year, the brambles made their move and I see now, too, that the vinca, which I accidentally transplanted when I moved a sedum from elsewhere, has taken over an incredible expanse of land in a very short time. Complicating matters is the large bed of adjacent, mature pachysandra which regularly creeps into the fenced area in its own quest for expansion. I've tried sinking tin flashing along the fence line, the kind used on roofs, by digging a trench about 6 inches deep and burying the flashing as a barrier against the spreading pachysandra, but it hasn't worked.

Elsewhere in the yard, I regularly battle the ugly garlic mustard with the tiny white flowers, along with the ever-present Asiatic bittersweet. I'd hate to see either make a foothold in my wild garden. As for the wild oats, well, they look nice, but they're a mess to clean up in spring, as all the dead foliage needs to be raked up and hauled out of there. And they may provide attractive
shelter for mice, something I'd like to discourage since one side of the wild garden lies just six feet from the foundation of the house (and yes, I do get mice in the basement each winter).

If anyone has any suggestions for how to tame this wild garden, I'd be glad to hear it. I'm looking for a lower maintenance way to grow this garden. I'd love something manicured and "tidy," though experience tells me that may be unrealistic.

Happy Easter

My Heart Went Pileat-Patter

Bird activity has certainly picked up here at Owl Hollow. This morning it was a flock of robins investigating the lawn that's becoming greener by the day.

I thought I'd seen it all here when it comes to bird sightings. Everything from rufous-sided towhees, lovely blue birds and Baltimore Orioles to wild turkeys, scarlet tanagers, rose-breasted grosbeaks, hummers, thrushes, yellow warblers and two that always wow me, the black and white warbler and indigo bunting.

For years, I volunteered with Project Feeder Watch, monitoring the population fluctuations and species diversity of North American songbirds in my own backyard. But after 15 years at Owl Hollow, I really wasn't expecting to see something new.

Until this morning.

As I watched the robins, my eyes caught a flash of something large coming to perch on a large branch of the giant sugar maple. Uh-oh, I thought, another Cooper's hawk come to pick off one of the birds at my feeders. The bird was partially obscured and appeared to be walking on the side of a horizontal branch. I caught sight of the red head. Oh, I said to myself, it's just a red-bellied woodpecker looking for insects. I often see them here. Then it took wing. It all happened so fast, but by golly, I do believe it was a pileated woodpecker. It was too large to be a red-bellied woodpecker, and I've never seen a hawk with a red head!


It flew to the rear of my yard and was gone. I feel so honored to have seen a pileated in my backyard! It makes all these years of working to create a suburban wildlife habitat worthwhile.

I saw a pair of pileated woodpeckers a few years ago not far from here; in fact, you might say it was an adjacent patch of woods, just over the hill from me near the dairy farm. At the time, I was taking a walk; the crow-sized birds seemed spooked by my presence.

In other news, I found the remains of what I believe was a skunk on the sheltered south side of the house.

(What else has a striped black and white tail?) The strange thing is that I found a similarly dead skunk a number of years ago very close to where I found this one. It was maybe 10 feet away on the same patch of lawn, under the shade of a large white pine. Is there something inviting about this sheltered spot that beckons the old or sick to lie and rest a while?

One of my spring rituals is hanging an onion bag full of cat hair outside for birds seeking to line their nests with something soft.

Luther is a prolific shedder and has, in fact, taken advanced coursework in the field. So I expect to find his soft orange hair lining the nests inside the bluebird and wren boxes later this year. Now that's the ultimate in recycling!

Late Winter Cedar Waxwing Sighting

I was washing dishes at the kitchen sink this morning when I saw a lot of flying birds flitting in and out among the maple leaf viburnums in the back. Since I've noticed the birds largely ignore those clusters of large, red berries all winter long, I was naturally curious who was finally going at those delectables with gusto.

I had a hunch, and once I grabbed the binoculars, I found I was right: a flock of cedar waxwings was gorging on those berries. They were moving around so quickly, it was hard to count them, but using my best Project Feeder Watch skills, I quickly guessed there were 7 or 8 of them.

Then something must have spooked them (could it have been me in my red flannel PJs peering through the window?) for they flew off to the upper branches of a nearby sugar maple. Downhill from their perch, their pale yellow bellies were illuminated by the rising eastern sun. I counted 36 of them! I feel as though I've won the lottery!

I've checked on them every 5 minutes or so, but they are still perched in the maple. Perhaps a neighbor's cat was attracted by all the commotion.

I'm really diggin' all the great weather forecast for the week Well, I haven't started digging yet. My yard and gardens are far too wet for any of that. Yesterday I loaded up my trunk with Honda-sized branches and headed for the landfill. It's a tedious process cutting everything up to 3-foot-long pieces, but being unemployed, well, let's say I have time to kill. I made a small dent in the growing mass of pruned mountain laurel, rhododendron, forsythia, butterfly bush, white pine and burning bush that have accumulated in the driveway during the past month.

Water, Water Everywhere

The nor'easter that swept up the Atlantic coast arrived here yesterday morning. By late afternoon, light rain had given way to a steady downfall and the wind picked up as the storm collected itself into a force to be reckoned with. Wind-whipped rain pelted the house all through the night, and the wind gusts, up to 60 miles per hour, rattled the wood shutters and made it impossible to sleep.

I know that some people like storms, but I'm not one of them. Will I lose power? There were over 90,000 Connecticut residents who did. Or worse, will the wind send a white pine limb crashing into the house? These are the thoughts that go through my head.

Owl Hollow is situated toward the lower end of a hill. The front yard slopes downward and then levels out; the back yard is level for about 30 feet from the house; beyond that, the incline becomes much steeper and continues upward another 100 feet until leveling out. This topography, combined with a seasonal high water table, has always meant water "issues" here.

In the basement, I have French drains. (The concrete is cut out around the perimeter of the walls and gravel-filled to collect water.) I don't get a wet basement in the way that some homeowners do, as in, several inches of water on the floor.

The water in my basement infiltrates in two ways: 1. Through the porous cinder block walls, as high as three feet from the floor. To witness a dozen or so pinholes through which water streams, much like a faucet, during a storm is really quite shocking. (This has largely been addressed with Thoroseal and Thoroplug concrete products which plug up tiny pinholes in the cinder blocks.) 2. The high water table creates damp spots on the concrete floor, particularly in the garage, which is about 6 inches lower than the basement.

So over the years, I've tried to address these issues, first by installing a sump pump, which I might add has been cycling on and off regularly since last evening. It works quite well, but that alone is not enough to handle the incredible volume of water coming down the side of the hill.

I've also had an underground drainage pipe installed in the backyard. It was dug toward the rear of my backyard lawn, where the level lawn meets the uphill brushy area filled with brambles. The piping runs parallel to the house to divert water that would otherwise rush straight down the hill toward the house. The pipe carries the water along the north side of the house and the water exits the pipe at ground level in a brushy area.

That's the white pipe on the left. I noticed after the heavy rains we've had that the northeastern side of the front lawn is quite soggy due to all the water draining out that pipe.

Here's the area just down hill from that pipe. It doesn't concern me too much since it's a seasonal thing that occurs in March and April. By May, things are generally drying out.

Further down the front yard, though, where the "lawn" meets the woodsy area bordering the road, you can see some erosion occurring under the crab apple tree. Last fall, I'd dumped a few wheelbarrows full of pine mulch underneath the crab apple to prevent wild mustard from taking over, but you can see how the force of the water coming down through the yard carved little rivulets through the mulch. I'll have to try mulching again once the area's dry enough to work in.

The force of the water coming down the hill doesn't end in those woods you see beyond the yard. Although there's a culvert there, the water often washes out the road in spring and often collects in large puddles there. It's really amazing how damaging all that water can be.

Eggshells for the Birds and the Garden

Here's a winter's worth of eggshells, all ground up. I use a small soapstone mortar and pestle to do the job.

I'm saving them to sprinkle around my tomato plants to prevent blossom end rot.

I hear they're also a useful barrier for deterring slugs. Last spring was a banner year for slugs in my garden. (You remember all that rain, don't you?) I also like to save some of the eggshells for songbirds, who by this time are scouting for nesting sites and "hooking up," in today's vernacular. Birds especially need calcium during egg-laying season.

My sister has spoiled me with her farm fresh eggs, so I only resort to buying eggs in winter, when my sister's hens have slowed production. Once you've eaten truly fresh eggs with their bright yellow yolks, the store-bought eggs actually seem a little gross.

I've also saved a few of those soft cardboard egg cartons for my vegetable seedlings, which Dad says I should be starting soon. Truth be told, I've never had much luck starting seedlings indoors, probably because I've never invested in a heating mat or grow lights. My indoor temperatures are also on the cool side (64 degrees daytime) and I know many seeds need warm temperatures to germinate. The warmest room in the house is my upstairs bathroom, which is the only room with both south and west-facing windows, so I may have to relocate the houseplant that loves its spot on top of the toilet

The big rain event here in the northeast has only just begun, but I've already been out to secure a loose shutter that was banging against the house in the driving wind. I'd just as soon stay inside for the rest of the day, but split pea soup is on the menu mid-day, and I need to get some parsnips and celery. I've also had a hankering for coleslaw these last few weeks and will be making my own today.

It's Coming!

The snowdrops are up! First sign of spring!

And they've spread a bit as well. No more complaining! If the snowdrops are up, crocuses and daffodils can't be far behind.

Now, how do you think I discovered the snowdrops were up? Surely, I would go outside under the big white pine and have a look-see. Nooo, I didn't think they'd be this early.

So I was browsing through some older posts of the University of Connecticut Cooperative Extension Service blog. The writer said she noticed that on a recent trip to Stamford she'd seen the snowdrops were already up. What? I mentally shouted to myself. I ran to my window and looked underneath the pine where, nine years ago, I'd planted a small clump of snow drops given to my by a former co-worker. Sure enough, there they were, plain as day. I grabbed my camera and ran outside to record the scene.

Yes, they've spread, but in nine years time, they still only occupy an area of a few square feet.

Garden Envy

Just as the most ambitious new diet proclamations are made right after consuming the most decadent dessert, so, too, late winter is the time I set an ambitious agenda for garden sightseeing in the months to come.

Today's sky is a milky shade of gray and the snow is largely gone. We've all kept a stiff upper lip to get through the coldest months of winter, and while nor'easters, colorless days and the biting cold have their charm, early March has me restless and impatient. Where are the snowdrops, crocuses and daffodils that will signal spring at Owl Hollow? (Patience, dear Fern. Need I remind you that the average last frost date in this part of western Connecticut doesn't arrive until May 15?)

Some garden bloggers are putting the finishing touches on plot plans for this year's vegetable garden, and some have already started seedlings indoors. (That's hard for me to do with a Maine Coon adolescent who makes bits of dust, plastic wrappers and, yes, green things that grow, a regular part of his diet. No place is safe from the feline Hoover.)

But what really gets me going is the thought of all those gorgeous gardens I can visit this year. When the humidity becomes uncomfortable and the bugs are out, procrastination comes easily, especially if I can put off my own garden chores to become a voyeur of others' hard labor and sweat. Just let me poke around, photograph and otherwise gain inspiration to coax my own gardens to delusions of grandeur, and I'll call that a great day.

I was admiring the photos of Scotland's Drummond Castle gardens that Laurie over at My Weeds Are Very Sorry posted. (What exquisite symmetry.) It's safe to say that for as long as I'm dealing with a long-term bout of unemployment, trips abroad won't be on my itinerary. But by way of compensation, I happily commit to visiting as many local gardens right here in Connecticut that I can squeeze in.

Last year, my mother and I visited the lovely Hollister House Garden in Washington (shown above and below). The 25-acre garden, created in 1979 and today a Garden Conservancy project, has evolved into a portrait of formal versus natural landscape design, hidden walkways, nooks and crannies and 10-foot-high walls and hedges that define outdoor "rooms."


This year, I've added the following must-see gardens to my list:

• Bellamy-Ferriday Garden in Bethlehem
• Hill Stead Gardens in Farmington
• Harkness Memorial State Park and Gardens in Waterford
• Promisek at Three Rivers Farm in Bridgewater

I can't wait!

Centennial Watershed State Forest hike

Today is the last of the 40+ degree days for a while. A series of approaching foul weather systems is headed our way to remind us all that it's still February. It seemed a good time to squeeze in a hike on the Aspetuck Valley Trail.

The trail winds through the Centennial Watershed State Forest. The 15,300-acre forest was established in 2002 as a partnership between the Aquarion Water Company, the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection and The Nature Conservancy to conserve land for water supply protection and open space preservation.

The black arrows on the map above indicate my route. I estimate I hiked about 4.86 miles, which doesn't sound like an incredible distance, but the snow and ice underfoot, combined with the usual tree roots and rocks, slowed me down enough to extend my time on the trail to about 2 3/4 hours.


This was the only bit of open field on the hike, near the trail head parking lot.


This is more typical of how the trail looked for most of the walk. Mountain laurel was most abundant, and I made a mental note to return in May, when the shrub would be in bloom.

The snow made for slow going. It had been warm enough yesterday to continue the daytime melting process, but dropping overnight temperatures put a halt to the melting and turned the trail into a mix of hard snow, ice and, as the morning wore on, a slushy juice.

Still, the snow cover revealed other hikers and their four-legged companions who had passed here before me, and it was their tracks that made it much easier for me to stay on the trail. Sure, the trail was blazed, but from time to time, there were no blazes to be seen. When you're not sure you're on the trail, you start to look around and all you can see is trees and more trees. It begins to sink in that you could really get lost out here. Luckily, that didn't happen, but I did find it necessary to spend more time scanning bare ground in spots, searching for the more downtrodden leaf litter as a clue to where others had gone.

I love the look of lichen-covered boulders. I wish I could transplant one to my living room.

This rotting tree stump covered in club moss also held interest in an otherwise monotone landscape.

Here's an interesting log cabin on an old country road the trail paralleled for a portion of its length.

Here's a closer look at the cabin's sunny back porch. It's quite charming.

Hope you enjoyed the walk.

Late February Snow - A Photo Essay

An area snowstorm has deposited a new layer of white in my yard, turning it into a study of white on gray.

 

I planted this Japanese black pine 15 years ago, when it was just a small sapling. I didn't think it was going to make it after deer browsed the lower branches. It has an interesting growth habit that has the vaguely Asian look that I love.

One of my greatest success stories is shown above. It's a large doublefile viburnum that has grown with enthusiasm and vigor since being planted about 10 years ago. I believe it produces black berries, but I see them so rarely as the birds pick them off as soon as they ripen. Here's what the shrub looks like in bloom, below.

 

This venerable mountain laurel is on the north side of the house. Deer browsing has sculpted all my mountain laurel and rhododendrons, giving them their graceful, bowl-shaped appearance.

These Autumn Joy sedums have donned snowy whitecaps, though I live far from the ocean. Here they are in September, below.

They never fail to deliver spectacular bloom at a time when most other perennials are spent. They're also drought-tolerant and insect- and deer-resistant.

Here's the Stairway to Heaven in summer. Although they lie on the south side of the house, they're heavily shaded by mountain laurel and rhododendrons, making those steps the perfect spot for a pot or two of impatiens.  Here's how they appear in the snow, below.

The back of the house is barely visible from the forest.

Nurture Your Houseplants

The next time you need to water your houseplants, why not practice water conservation, ditch the Miracle Gro and apply your own liquid fertilizer, all at the same time?

Simply save the water you use to cook vegetables to water houseplants, after the water has cooled. (If those vegetables on the stove happened to be ones you grew yourself, organically, so much the better.)

The water in which vegetables have been boiled contains minerals and other nutrients that will help your plants thrive. Cooked vegetables leach some of these nutrients in the water, even when the vegetables are steamed.

Of course, it's not a good idea to water houseplants with salted cooking water. If you're in the habit of doing this, you can still reuse this nutrient brew by freezing it for later use in soups or stews.

Interestingly, the San Francisco Chronicle reports that Southerners at one time used water left over from boiling foods poured over bread or biscuits or simply drunk from a shot glass. Such water was known as "pot liquor," or "potlikker."

American slave cooks started the practice of saving the "broth" from cooking greens like collards, turnips and mustards to feed their families.

Potlikker may have been associated with a life of hardship, but many of those who became accustomed to drinking such vegetable water – it was the precursor, after all, of V8 juice - relished the distinct flavors of waters used to cook specific vegetables.

If you're a Northerner, potlikker may be an acquired taste. And while the water used to cook other foods, such as pasta or hard-boiled eggs, may not generate the same praise from Southern foodies, it can still be used to refresh your houseplants.

February Blahs

View from the front door

My apologies to anyone who's noticed the glaring lack of posts here. I've been feeling particularly  uninspired of late. No doubt, it's a case of the February blahs. I have been spending most of my time huddled indoors and compulsively cooking, then attempting to work it all off at the gym.

I noticed another blogger I read takes a break from writing with her "Wordless Wednesday" posts that feature a photo.  I think I may start up something similar called, "Speechless Sundays."

"It's in the Bag"

The frugal among us "brownbag it" in an effort to be good. For my boy, Luther, brown bagging it means being devilishly bad.

An extra large, brown paper bag is all it took to occupy the energetic, too-mischievous-for-my-own-good but cute-as-a-button, I-can-do-no-wrong Luther with eight weeks (and counting) of 100% unadulterated fun. (It's a good place to snooze, too.)

Behold, the Amazing Bag.

It is not empty.

Note the many pinholes made by sharp little claws.

One day, one of those pinholes became a tear. Soon, the tear became a hole. Oh, the possiblities.

This seat is taken. Scram!

 How about a hot dog and a glass of milk?

 Did anyone see my mouse?

 That took a lot out of me. Snore.....

End Note: The more timid Waldo observed Luther inside, around and on top of the bag for most of the past two months. Finally lured forward by the irresistible sound of crinkling paper, he only recently screwed up the courage to approach the strange brown object. To be continued....