Spring is over-rated

“Miss Kim”, my late-blooming lilac is now spraying sweet-smelling, nose-tickling fragrance all over the yard. It’s a lovely way to wrap up what’s actually a fairly typical New England spring. There’s very little of the sort of cool sunny weather you wish spring meant, and lots of winter dregs raining on you day by dreary […]

Lilac Sunday

Now is the time when the lilacs take over from the daffodils for providing the sweet scent of spring.

Snow breaks

There’s young shoots and snowdrops, and then there’s the ugly things revealed by melting snow. Bad snow! You broke my lilac bush!

Enter summer, stage right

There’s nothing unofficial about Memorial Day being the start of summer. It’s when my lilac finally blooms and overwhelms the yard with sweetness. It’s when the hot weather starts. It’s when the first mosquito whines in your ear when you’re looking for the cat. They all spell the end of spring and the beginning of […]

Sweetness in the air

These pinks are intensely spicy sweet, like cloves. There’s waves of sweetness coming off this lump of lilac. And the first peony blossom is just opening. (It doesn’t smell like anything.) In the category of weeds I shouldn’t be tolerating…