Category Archives: pests and problems

Whose Woods These Are I Surely Know (The Trees, Not So Much)

You know what I like most about winter? It’s the one time of year when I don’t have to feel guilty about neglecting the garden. It’s my duty to neglect it! But I can never let well enough alone, so this winter I signed up for several more courses offered through the Native Plant Trust. Most recently completed: one course on soils, one on trees of New England. Continue reading

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What bugs me

Don’t worry; this isn’t a rant.
No, I’m just going to talk about bugs. Real bugs. Or, to be more precise: insects.
Let me tell you about the reeducation I’ve been getting as I pivot towards more native plants in the garden. Continue reading

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The Department of You Think You’ve Got Problems

Every once in a while, I learn something that puts my problems into perspective. There are degrees of bad. There’s too much rain in one week, for example, and there’s the Greenland ice cap melting. There’s a very dry June, and there’s the Dixie wildfire and then the Caldor wildfire. But let me take you halfway round the globe and invoke the experience of my friend R. Continue reading

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For the birds

I was wondering whether there’s anything going on outside that you might want to hear about, and I thought: BIRDS! Who doesn’t love them and want more of them around?

So I looked into birds. That’s when it got interesting. Like a train wreck is interesting.

But hang on, because I also found some inspiration. Continue reading

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November miscellany

It was a grab-bag week, so this is a grab-bag post. Cold cold weather is rolling in and back, in and back, and I’ve been scrambling to get this ‘n’ that done as time and weather permitted. Now it’s urgent for me to figure out the priorities for any action that involves digging into the ground. I say priorities, because I’m afraid I’ve reached Triage Day. Today. Continue reading

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Reconstruction, garden variety

Here it is November, edging into the middle of the month, and for a brief and lovely week, the march of the seasons hit pause-and-rewind.

The warm spell put me back on the hook, though: things I had thought were past praying for, all of a sudden weren’t. Things I thought would just have to wait till spring, now became not only possible but even, perhaps, mandatory. After all, there were (and still are) piles of mulch and topsoil in the driveway, waiting for me to do something with them. They must be dealt with, or horrors will happen…. Continue reading

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Lazier gardening is in style at last!

Fall is arriving so early this year. Too early for me, now matter which standpoint I’m looking from: how much time and effort I’ve put into getting things to grow, only to see them keel over; or the timetable of advice on fall cleanup. Every time I go out to the garden, I find evidence of demise Continue reading

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