Favorites for Apple Picking and Fall Foliage

artist Emily James

Here are some ranked favorites for these autumn pastimes. Like to pick your own apples, doing the foliage hop this year?...these links might guide you.

clipped from buzz.yahoo.com

Rank	Favorite Apple Pick-Up Spots	Favorite Fall Foliage Spots
1.	Apple Picking Massachusetts	New England Fall Foliage
2.	Apple Picking NY	Vermont Fall Foliage Report
3.	Apple Picking NJ	New Hampshire Fall Foliage
4.	Long Island Apple Picking	Maine Fall Foliage
5.	Michigan Apple Orchards	Colorado Fall Foliage Report
6.	Illinois Apple Picking	New York Fall Foliage
7.	Apple Picking in Maine	PA Fall Foliage
8.	Apple Picking in CT	Virginia Fall Foliage
9.	Apple Picking Indiana	Ohio Fall Foliage
10.	Apple Picking Wisconsin	Michigan Fall Foliage

Top Apple Picking and Leaf-Peeping Destinations

I Promise

I'll be back blogging here soon- I have a new garden project to write about. I didn't mean to go on quite this long a hiatus....

Summer Sunshine in a Flower

 Hello September from Cottage on the Corner:

Bring me then the plant that points to those bright Lucidities swirling up from the earth,
And life itself exhaling that central breath!
Bring me the sunflower crazed with the love of light.”
~ Eugenio Montale

Beautiful photos of summer sunflowers and tomatoes- the end of the season.
I love T. Opdycke's celebration of the sunflower, the flower that I think of as quintessentially summer. Her photos are joyful and take you on a tour of her world.


a lovely world it is, too.



© 2010 Ilona's Garden Journal.All rights reserved.

Rainer's Photo of native biomass example

I recently wrote a profile on English ivy, and it is with interest that I read this passionate gardener/landscaper's post calling us to throw off the yoke of the groundcover and take on a style of native gardening.

I empathize, and am almost persuaded. But there are a few things I still would consider....

• The vast majority of homeowners are not yet gardeners, though they wish for a pleasant yardscape. "Groundcovers represent a failure of the imagination." That is very true, but it also represents a lack of time and will to garden as well as lack of know-how. 
• For the aging gardener, and I am one, the need to use plantings that reduce the amount physical effort spent in maintaining a garden must be considered. I can't afford to pay someone to do the yard maintenance even if I wanted to... switching to groundcovers can accomplish that. So, short of letting the yard go wild completely ( and I do give over large parts of it for just such spaces), how may we garden into our years while staying in our properties that require upkeep?
• The trend ought to be towards an ecologically sound method of gardening, with an eye to what people will realistically adopt in their garden practices. Rarely is nature easily and drastically changed for the better. Even if it were possible to move masses of Americans to garden rather than maintain their yards.... might we have other problems from the behavior of the herd, rather than considerate gardening? Maybe it is only in the professional landscaping sector that this message ought to be driven home ... since they are the consultants, the trendmakers through communication media, and often the ones planting the low maintenance yards of the suburbs with many poor plants choices.
• Perhaps the answer is more in the general work ethos that our culture has or lacks, because stewarding the land is often a labor intensive undertaking

However, this is a blog that I hope has longevity, because Thomas Rainer combines great writing and great gardening in his well crafted blog.

The alternative to groundcovers is not slightly less invasive groundcovers, but planting beds filled with native biomass. We need to re-imagine our beds filled with a rich tapestry of perennials, grasses, shrubs, and low trees. While our unfamiliarity with these materials make them intimidating, we should rely on the toughest and most resilient native perennials and grasses to fill our borders. The demand for evergreen should be replaced with plants that provide winter interest: dried grasses, seed heads, and structural deciduous shrubs. We should transform our ecological dead zones into ecological hotspots by creating connected areas of native biomass. When we do this, we invite pollinators and birds back into our landscapes. -The End of Groundcovers

© 2010 Ilona's Garden Journal.All rights reserved.

May Dreams Gardens: Garden Design Elements: Seasonal-shift

May Dreams Gardens: Garden Design Elements: Seasonal-shift: "I find it very confusing to be in a garden where plants are blooming everywhere you look and there is no place to rest your eyes without see..."

A great read on the idea of centralizing the vision of the garden to focus in on specific seasonal bloom.

© 2010 Ilona's Garden Journal.All rights reserved.

Easy Way to Journal Your Garden

© 2010 Ilona's Garden Journal.All rights reserved.

You are going to buy some tulip and daffodil bulbs, soon.... or you find a great new shrub on sale, which you snap up and want to situate in your garden.... now, are you going to remember the names of those plantings five years from now? How about next year? What if you forget exactly where you planted some of those bulbs? an easy way to journal, or keep track might be just what you need.

There are all sorts of reasons to keep a written account of garden details. I'm probably the worst about this, but you wouldn't believe how often I rely on this blog to remember details about plants I bought and what my plans were for the upcoming seasons.

I found another resource for a free online garden journal. Free download in PDF format: Garden Journal.

Add this to the ones I've written about previously:

Advice on Making a Garden Journal
Print Your Own Garden Journal