Beth Emmott

Went to Bartram’s Garden. Very hot but a nice breeze, took two tours, one of the grounds and one of the house.

I didn’t know Fig trees would grow in Philadelphia!.

Born in 1699, John Bartram became America’s first great botanist and with his son William identified and cultivated over 200 new plant species. In 1765 King George III appointed John as Royal Botanist, a position he held until his death in 1777.

July 2010 storm damage of Historic 1790′s Yellowwood Tree.

Research has shown that this tree planted by John Bartram, has been damaged in previous storms and hopefully will recover.

Many plants are direct descendents of ones he cultivated, including one of his most well known, the Franklinia, (Franklinia alatamaha), he named it after his friend, Benjamin Franklin.

On our way back from Connecticut, we visited Storm King. Located in the Hudson Valley, 50 miles north of the George Washington Bridge, this art center consists of 500 acres of rolling New York hills and fields containing over a hundred post WWII works by renowned artists.
It was a very hot muggy day when we visited and I had not done my homework as it was a spur of the moment visit. But, via a wonderful orientation tour followed by  one of the tram tours which stop at various points allowing you to get on and off at will, we received one of the best sculptural experiences imaginable!

We have many works by these artists in Philadelphia, but to see so many all together, one after the other and more just around the bend . . . A garden of Art

Alexander Calder’s Five Swords and Mark Di Suvero’s Pyramidian

Andy Goldsworthy’s Storm King Wall and Alexander Lieberman’s Adonia

Isamu Noguchi’s Momo Taro and Kenneth Snelson’s Free Ride Home

New Beaver Pond in Connecticut.

Spent the weekend in CT visiting Senter and Bitty. They live in a log home over looking a wonderful pond and fields, where they have created a sort of sanctuary for lots of critters. Birds of all sorts, deer, wild turkeys, muskrats, frogs and, it seems, a beaver. Back in the back pasture, which Senter keeps mowed better than most front yards, off to the right is a small stream that beaver have dammed up, creating a whole new environment. Of course this required a trek through the woods to see it.

We also took a trip to the Fisher Museum at Harvard Forest in Petersham, MA to see their forest dioramas. That was more than a trek through the woods, but it was a beautiful day, through small New England towns. I had read about the dioramas when I was at the Arnold Arboretum a few weeks earlier with my garden gals. The dioramas were created in the 1930′s and are incredible. They have to be seen to be believed.

Later that day, my nephew, Senter, came for the weekend. He has a Mooney airplane which he gets serviced in NJ once a year. As he lives in Alabama, he used the trip as a chance to visit his folks. That was a bonus to the weekend we hadn’t expected.

On the way home on Sun we stopped at Storm King in NY for a few hours. I’ll save that for my next post. Right now I’d better get busy with work.

This year my garden friends from Moore College of Art went to Brookline MA outside of Boston. Visited the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum on Wed and the Arnold Arboretum on Thurs. Sally couldn’t make it as she had horsey things to do and Jane had to leave early Thurs but here are Mike, me, Marge, Jane and Pam at the Arnold on a rainy day by the Smoke Bush!

(Several people have asked me about the use of the word Hoax. It comes from a friend, Joe, who used it for a trip which was mainly for fun. Our garden trips are educational but the true purpose is to have fun together. I suppose, today, getting away to just have fun is a bit of a trick.)

Well, the holidays are over and school has started. My first classes were yesterday. Right now I’m headed to VA to my Mom’s to dedecorate her house and to celebrate her birthday! My decorations at home are down except for greens around the door but it has been too cold to deal with that. This new header image is of those greens.

We’re driving down the Delmarva peninsula and it is still cold, but I hear it’s already over 50 degrees in Virginia Beach. So that’s good! Here the ponds are frozen and the fields which will soon have green things growing are all brown and stubbly but the sky is full of birds in “V” formation—I wish flying to Canada but that won’t be until around March. Yeah, I know, in Philadelphia, I still have to deal with Feb. and March but the days ARE getting longer and stuff is starting to grow. Really!

Get’s me making plans for my garden— the catalogs have been coming for almost a month now and we have been having snows that melt slowly watering the ground so I hope there will not be any dry spells this summer to turn my world into a dust bowl.

My back yard has a place that needs seeding but other than that it’s pretty ok—just maintenance and veggies. But the front – under the living room window, is a shady place that is just a mess of pacasandra and a stunted azalea bush that need work. There’s a project to think about.

Or perhaps along the side walk—we could revisit that as well. I like to plant seasonal things along my way from the house to the car. Then, if I’m busy at work and don’t have time to wander my garden, I don’t miss the changes.