Author Archives: Cathy

The meadow is producing luscious forbs for bouquets ~ white yarrow, flea bane and Queen Anne’s Lace dotted like stars among the native grasses. Green sedges provide dramatic contrast with their seed heads and arching sepals. The Chicago Hardy Fig … Continue reading →

Spring into summer birds have been building their nests in the hollow. Billary, long-time resident cardinal, wakes us in the morning and closes the day when he makes his rounds atop the trees circling the front yard, declaring loudly, exuberantly, … Continue reading →

Lewis and Clark recorded in their journals that when they first saw vast fields of Camassia on the Lolo Trail west of the Cascade Mountains, they mistook it for a lake because of the iridescent blue. The Indian Hyacinth (Camassia … Continue reading →

The Bluebird of Happiness just visited. He pecked on the window and retreated to the witch-hazel outside my office window, framed perfectly by the grey bark and dusky red flowers of Hamamelis x ‘Diane’ . He sat still for me … Continue reading →

It’s an ill wind that does no good and the storms of January along with the demise of our beetle-doomed Ash have opened up the east meadow. Our new horizon will make for a sunnier microclimate and serves as a … Continue reading →

Got back to the hollow from NYC a week ago. We hopped the train right up ~ AmTrack out of Charlottesville ~  because we were drawn like a magnet to the “Companions in Solitude” exhibit at the Met that included … Continue reading →

The hollow continues to be a paradise of woodland, meadows, fields and garden and our luck is still holding, but the world and time intrude with the continuing pandemic in the outside world (which variant are we on now?). Still … Continue reading →

We spent the autumn equinox at the Outer Banks and when we returned, the hollow had tilted into fall, always our favorite time of year. This year makes 36 since I came here as a bride. The woodland trees haven’t … Continue reading →

When the Verbesina blooms in August I feel like the denizens of Cold Comfort Farm when the infamous “sukevine” strew its lush flowers over that fraught landscape. Verbesina alternifolila, a native to wooded slopes, open woodlands and riverbanks, is also … Continue reading →

Drumstick allium (A. sphaerocephalon) shoots off like a firework from a bed of Black-eyed-Susans for the Fourth of July weekend. Despite a few beneficent showers we are still within the dusty embrace of the drought that has settled over most … Continue reading →