“A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all, it teaches entire trust.”
–Gertrude Jekyll, from The Gardening Companion: A Guide to the Art of Garden Design
Spring in New Hampshire
By Claude McKay
Too green the springing April grass, Too blue the silver-speckled sky, For me to linger here, alas, While happy winds go laughing by, Wasting the golden hours indoors, Washing windows and scrubbing floors.
Too wonderful the April night, Too faintly sweet the first May flowers, The stars too gloriously bright, For me to spend the evening hours, When fields are fresh and streams are leaping, Wearied, exhausted, dully sleeping.
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Leaving Seedheads
Leaving seedheads in your garden over the winter provides an excellent food source for birds and animals. To summon the wisdom of Piet Oudolf, creator of the native garden at the Highline in New York City, the days of cutting your plants to the ground in autumn are over. While old garden books used to exhort us to leave no dry stalk standing lest it harbor an over-wintering insect, we’ve come to realize that the over-wintering insects are a crucial part of a delicate eco-system. If you simply can’t stand to have a “messy” garden over the winter, you can cut the stalks, lay them flat, and leave them in the garden–they’ll be snow-covered soon enough. The creatures who spend the winter outdoors will make use of them.