September 2nd, 2018 |
This is a bumper year for mushrooms. On a short stretch of path in the woods, I spotted six different types. I didn't pick any or examine them carefully, and without noting the specifics of their gills and stalks, I can't identify them with certainty. Mushroom identification is tricky in the best of cases, and without being sure what each is, I definitely won't eat them. But the differences in colour and shape are interesting. [caption id="attachment_6660" align="aligncenter" width="1543"] Is this one of the edible puffballs? Maybe, maybe not.[/caption] [caption id="attachment_6661" align="aligncenter" width="1444"]
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Posted in Glen Villa, Plants | 9 Comments »
August 30th, 2018 |
Last week we added two new bridges on the Timelines trail. They aren't large constructions but both allow us to keep our feet dry. The first bridge, near the end of the avenue of crabapple trees, avoids the ditch at the end of a culvert that goes underneath a road that connects our village of North Hatley to the neighbouring village of Sainte-Catherine-de-Hatley -- formerly known as Katevale. [caption id="attachment_6611" align="aligncenter" width="4272"] Over time we've made this ditch deeper and wider by driving through it in a small all-wheel vehicle.[/caption] The
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Posted in Design, Glen Villa | 13 Comments »
August 19th, 2018 |
Sometimes small changes make a huge difference, or as I wrote last fall, Little Things Mean a Lot. I was writing then about some small changes I'd made at the Skating Pond at Glen Villa, my garden in Quebec. Later in the fall, after I wrote about the changes, I made one more. I added a bench. [caption id="attachment_6599" align="aligncenter" width="5184"] The slate under the bench was left over from a previous project.[/caption] My sister immediately said the bench looked wrong -- and she was right. [caption id="attachment_6600" align="aligncenter"
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Posted in Design, Glen Villa | 16 Comments »
August 13th, 2018 |
In the middle of August the garden at Glen Villa is just beginning to emerge from an unusually long dry spell. A few days ago we had rain -- buckets of it that washed out our driveway and threw a section of bank into Lake Massawippi. (We repaired the driveway; the lake itself may take care of the landslide.) Before the rain, plants were wilting badly. The leaves on a catalpa tree we planted years ago first drooped, then began to curl up and turn brown; thankfully they are now starting to recover.
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Posted in Glen Villa, Plants | 13 Comments »
August 6th, 2018 |
For several years now I've been working on a trail that leads through the fields and forests at Glen Villa. Sited along the trail are art installations I'm creating that relate to history, the passage of time and the relationship between art and architecture. I wrote about this for the first time in March 2017. My focus then was to figure out what to call the trail. Thanks to my granddaughter Elinor, there now is a name. Timelines. I like the name. It is short and direct yet suggestive of something
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Posted in Art, Glen Villa | 15 Comments »
July 23rd, 2018 |
Mid-July is truly the middle of summer in North Hatley, Quebec, when both the flowers in the garden at Glen Villa and the wildflowers in the fields strut their stuff. The Nepeta racemosa 'Walker's Low' at The Aqueduct is still blooming, a month after it began. The Eremurus 'Cleopatra' that provided such a wonderful vertical accent has faded now, but its candles remained lit for several weeks. Only in the last few days have they been extinguished. Nearby, a clematis (Clematis 'Inspiration') with the same colour tonality as the
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Posted in Glen Villa, Plants | 14 Comments »
June 29th, 2018 |
Many people have asked when we will be opening the garden to the public this year. The sad news is, we won't. This summer we are working on various garden projects that need time to settle in. But I hope that in 2019 we will have one -- or maybe two -- open garden days. [caption id="attachment_6418" align="aligncenter" width="3586"] If you visit the garden next summer in mid-June, you may see this field of buttercups.[/caption] Many people have also asked about where and when I'll be speaking. Coming up on July
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Posted in Glen Villa, Miscellaneous | 5 Comments »
June 25th, 2018 |
As June shines its way towards July, I'm outside soaking it in and enjoying the garden at Glen Villa. There are too many happy-making things to show in a single post, so today I'm focusing on only four. First come the hawthorn trees. We planted them more than 15 years ago and they have proved a mixed blessing, blooming well in some years, not so well in others. This year they were spectacular. [caption id="attachment_6453" align="aligncenter" width="5184"] Seeing the trees from a distance was like seeing a cloud of light,
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Posted in Glen Villa, Plants | 12 Comments »
June 17th, 2018 |
Yesterday I spoke at the Colby-Curtis Museum in Stanstead, Quebec, home to the Stanstead Historical Society. The museum is a local treasure, housed in a classical revival-style villa built in 1859 called Carrollcroft. [caption id="attachment_6429" align="aligncenter" width="5184"] The house, its gardens and adjacent stable and carriage house, tell the story of the Colby family, a prominent local family of American origin. The family donated the house and its contents to the Stanstead Historical Society in 1992. Exhibitions provide insight into the social and cultural history of the county which borders Vermont.[/caption] The current
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Posted in Design, Reviews | 15 Comments »
June 4th, 2018 |
In just over a year, the Crabapple Allée, aka the Avenue, has gone from dream to dirt, to bloom and gone. We started with this, a dull bare field. [caption id="attachment_6400" align="aligncenter" width="4272"] I took this photo on April 24, 2017, when I became serious about planting a long allée of trees,. The walk through the trees is part of a larger project I'm still working on.[/caption] Four months later, The Avenue was beginning to take shape. [caption id="attachment_6399" align="aligncenter" width="5184"] August 8, 2017[/caption] By mid-November, the
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Posted in Design, Glen Villa, Plants | 20 Comments »
