The MV Community Seed Library Group hosts another seed swap and giveaway on the West Tisbury Library porch, weather permitting.
Once again the weather people promised rain on Sunday and were totally off. I wish I had their job and could be wrong most of the time and still keep it.
“Cottage gardens are very personal,” West Tisbury garden designer Mary Wirtz tells me. “There is no wrong way to do them.”
Hallelujah.
Those of you who worship straight lines and sharp angles, you can all shuffle to the other side of the room for now. (Though feel free to eavesdrop and come shuffling back.)
Gardening is big business all over Martha’s Vineyard. To meet this demand, the Vineyard's long-established landscape and garden companies have been joined in recent years by a wave of young gardeners who are willing to work long hours during the season to make a good living.
Quite suddenly in mid-September, night-time temperatures start to fall, we unpack that feather duvet and a pot of hearty soup simmering on the stove once again is an appealing meal. Yet the pleasure in color, growth, and greenery are perennial and can be enjoyed in various ways, even as the season changes. You can bring the garden indoors as you firmly shut the door to keep the drafts out.
The ornamental grass in the corner of your garden has overgrown. The anise hyssop, its purple blossoms now turning a burnt orange, has eclipsed all else in the garden and the soil is due for a revamp. And then there are the spring bulbs to attend to.
Fall, Mike Saunier says, is for fixing.
Will it ever rain again? It’s been over a month without anything amounting to much. Don’t get me wrong. The days could not be more perfect. Clear and crisp in the mornings with abundant sunshine all day certainly raises the spirits.
