A Quiet Winter.....

Sorry folks, the blog still remains at the bottom of the "to do" list.

None the less, it has been a quiet winter punctuated by several trips and visits with old friends. I was jolted out of the usual winter slumber yesterday by a seminar held annually by Atlantic Nurseries, a specialty wholesale nursery on Long Island NY. I have been attending these seminars each winter for almost two decades. They are a chance to see your old friends in the professional horticultural world and learn a thing or two in the process. Also, they were always my wake-up call to start planning the spring season for my design/build business. I am mostly retired now with only a few projects on the horizon but I still felt the juice in the room - spring is nearly here.
The topic of this year's seminar was "Creating Great Gardens" with noted writer/designers Suzy Bales and Tracy DiSabato-Aust as speakers. I want to single out Tracy's newly re-released book "The Well-Tended Perennial Garden: Planting & Pruning Techiques" for special mention. I have been pruning perennials professionally (nice alliteration, ha!) for twenty years and I truly did not expect to learn much. How wrong. Tracy introduce a technique called premptive pruning - pruning to delay or extend bloom time (so that bank of asters would bloom after your client returned from their annual vacation instead of during...every year!) I would have liked to have had that tip articulated so well years ago. Get the book!
Suzy also has a new book out: The Garden in Winter: Plant for Beauty and interest in the quiet season. I have not read it yet but the pictures, as always, are beautiful. Her talk at the seminar was pulled from her 2004 book: Down-to-earth Gardener: Let Nature Guide you to Success in your Garden. I have not read that one yet but Suzy used photos from the book for her talk - beautiful and exhuberent!

It's grey and rainy today but after the seminar yesterday it's o.k. I'm juiced too! Spring is coming.