It is such a busy time at Red Oak House. So much is happening in the garden. More on that later. But first, this past weekend was filled with the gift of family. My sister, Sarah, brought my daughter, Rachel, from Dickinson, N.D., for the weekend. Sunday, my day started with brunch with my daughters and husband. They presented me …
“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If …
Tuesday my yard was filled with the intoxicating fragrance of our blooming crabapple trees. Sunday there was a hint of blossom in the fat buds, and with Monday’s sunshine, these fully opened. Bismarck is filled with crabapple and other blossoming trees, and the pollinators are quite busy. Although we don’t have one, the fragrance of the plum trees takes me …
It was a blustery spring day Monday at Red Oak House with the front passing through that brought thunder and rain to the northern Plains and a stiff breeze to rustle the new leaves everywhere. I could hear the chipping sparrows in the backyard. Any day, now the white-crowned sparrows will pass through. We are mostly done with the cleanup from Sunday evening’s …
Here at Red Oak House, it was a sunny 84-degree Saturday, and so many things in the garden are popping it is worthy of a photo update. It was a very busy day here. Jim did some cultivating and got some vegetables planted. It is pine pollen season, and everything is coated with the fine chartreuse pollen dust, including the furniture …
After my morning yoga class, I made another foray to one of our local nurseries, then it was home to the work in the garden. After I’d planted my new treasures, I had to turn to grubbing raspberries. Until the last couple of years, I’d not had much experience with growing raspberries. When we grew them at our Dunn County …
It’s time for a cold glass of Guenoc chardonnay on the patio of Red Oak House after a perfectly delightful afternoon in the garden, time to savor the goodness of life. Late morning was spent at the local garden shops and then it was home to plant my new treasures. Is there anyplace as happy on a May day than …
Jim and I spent Earth Day 2017 working in our yard in the dee-lightful spring sunshine. We might have joined the marches for science around the country, but the yard work beckoned. I remember very clearly the first Earth Day in 1970. We got out of school that day to pick up trash in the ditch along state Highway 12 …
A brief tour of the gardens, yesterday … what a beautiful time of year.
No one has done more to create the easy-care modern roses you now find in so many gardens than Canadians breeders. Unless gardeners were ready to battle subzero cold and hot and humid summers, they were just out of luck. A modern rose is any cultivar introduced since the advent of the hybrid tea in 1867. Only a few, however, combined hardy …