Spring is here! Ah, the sights and smells of spring. Beautiful flowers, flowering trees, bubbling brooks, flowing fountains, fluttering butterflies and tables ready for your first cookouts. The Hartford Flower and Garden Show If you don’t believe us, head on down to the Connecticut Convention Center for the 38th annual Connecticut Flower and…
The Hartford Flower Show is right around the corner. In our last blog we told you that the madman was going around asking “Who wants to go to the Flower Show?” He says the replies have changed from “I do. I do” to “Pick me. Pick me.” And a selection of plants have appeared on…
Overwintering plants from the garden is a task the madman readily accepts. He knows that living with plants all winter means he can enjoy them in the summer. Now that the days are definitely getting longer, the madman is thinking, “Can’t wait to get these plants out of here!” He is starting to get tired…
The madman has returned from his shopping trip with all manner of celebratory items. It looks like New Year’s Eve all over again. You would think he is getting ready for the Super Bowl. But, in reality, we are celebrating the end of the Persephone period. And it’s such a big deal that we are…
The madman’s definition of a tool is “something that makes a task easier.” The better the tool, the easier the task. We consider our seed catalogs tools, but now let’s consider the other tools hanging on walls, sitting in buckets or lying around in various spots – NOT misplaced, says the madman. Mid-winter,…
We told you in an earlier blog that the seed catalogs were arriving – they began to appear around Thanksgiving. At one time they started arriving around the first week of January, but it seems they come earlier and earlier. At any rate we read them as soon as we can. A good fire, a…
If you are a gardener, one of your New Year’s Resolutions should have been to keep a gardening Journal. Or, if you are like the madman, to keep a BETTER journal. Why? Because as the madman says, “your memory is never as good as you think it is – in fact, it’s not even close.”…
Happy New Year! 2019 is going to be a fantastic year. Spent the morning vacuuming up pine needles, tossing wrapping paper and stacking boxes. Our favorite boxes are the ones with the pretty flowers – you know the ones, they are marked “Amaryllis”. Bet a bunch of you got similar boxes since they were very…
The madman came dancing up the cellar stairs a couple of days ago singing “They’re up, they’re up, they’re up.” To a visitor his actions may seem strange, but I knew he meant that some seeds had begun to sprout. To understand the significance, we have to back track to the beginning of December. Exciting…