If you are visiting national parks, be sure to plan a trip to the Cape Hatteras National Seashore managed by our National Parks Service. While you are there, don't forget to visit the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. It's the big tall building. This lighthouse has stood along the ocean since 1870, lighting the way for ships, preventing them from losing their way in the dark and fog and crashing up against the shore. And if you were there in July 1999 like I was, you could have also watched the … [Read more...] about Cape Hatteras National Seashore
gardens
Everything I Learned About Touring Gardens, I Learned at Montrose
Everything I learned about touring gardens, I learned at Montrose, a garden I visited while attending the Garden Writers Association Symposium last month in Raleigh, North Carolina.Most of what I knew about Montrose before visiting it was what was included in the symposium’s little guide book:“Because of her intimately written garden books, Nancy Goodwin is a recognizable name to garden writers, and visiting her breathtaking 61-acre Montrose Garden will feel strangely familiar. Now a Garden … [Read more...] about Everything I Learned About Touring Gardens, I Learned at Montrose
Don’t Settle for Four-Fifths of a Garden
I have a theory that most gardeners will eventually plant a few vegetables in their garden, even if it wasn’t part of their original plan, and many will find a sunny spot someplace for an actual vegetable garden.They may start out with the idea that they want a garden with just flowers and trees and shrubs and may spend hours, days, if not years enjoying it through four of their fives senses - smell, sight, hearing, and touch. But according to my theory, they’ll figure out that a garden that … [Read more...] about Don’t Settle for Four-Fifths of a Garden
Step Back and See the Gardens
How do you know when you've seen enough gardens for one day?When you are standing in a beautiful Chicago garden, a Zone 5a garden which is very close to your own Zone 5b garden, and you ask no one in particular, "Can I grow that in my garden?"And you answer your own question. Yes.Every flower, every shrub, every tree that I saw today, except of course for those that are grown in a greenhouse and taken out just for the summer, I can grow in my own garden.It's "horticultural overload" at its … [Read more...] about Step Back and See the Gardens
Memories of Green Hall
This fall, Pam/Digging is moving to a new garden, which is very exciting, but it means she is leaving her current garden, Green Hall, a garden that has a special place in the History of Garden Blogging.It was at Green Hall that we gathered near the end of the first Garden Bloggers’ Spring Fling to rest, relax, socialize, and talk about gardening and garden blogging before our farewell dinner.It was the perfect location, and Pam was the perfect hostess.My first glimpse of Green Hall took place … [Read more...] about Memories of Green Hall
Wind at May Dreams Gardens
It's amazing, sometimes, that the leaves don't all get blown out of the trees when the wind blows like this.But the leaves are hanging on, not yet ready to change colors, to fall off the trees, to admit that this growing season is coming to an end.Hang in there, leaves, once this wind blows through, we still have at least four weeks, maybe a good six weeks or more, until the killing frost!Hang in there, blooms, I still need to take a few more pictures for Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day … [Read more...] about Wind at May Dreams Gardens