Author Archives: Ellen Cool

Good Green Words

By Ellen Cool | Published: 2013/03/17

____Green Words You May Enjoy Knowing___ Viridescent = Iridescent Green ___________________________ Etymology: Latin viridis green + iridescent Originated Circa 1847 An iridescent surface is one that appears to change color as the angle of view or the angle of illumination changes. “It is hard to photograph sparkle” Isaac Mizrahi, 2009 _______________________________________ ______________________________________ When you [...]

Free Flowers for Valentine’s Day and Beyond

By Ellen Cool | Published: 2013/02/12

Free Flowers for Valentine’s Day and Beyond In February and later, nicely shaped cut branches of Forsythia brought inside to a vase with lots of water will flower gracefully within 2 weeks. Yes, it really is as simple as that. Just keep the water refreshed, nearly to the top of the container. If you cut some [...]

Posted in Plant Portraits, Things They Never Tell You, Your Reasoned Landscape | Tagged Abbracci a Milano, Arum italicum pictum, force forsythia, forcing forsythia, Forsythia, free flowers, Free Hugs Campaign Italy, Free Hugs Day, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOTW1FHTEoI, pruning Forsythia, Salix hakuro nishiki, Valentines Day, Winter Arrangements | 7 Responses

Recycling Christmas Greens

By Ellen Cool | Published: 2012/12/11

Wreathing the Beds Greens After Christmas A second harvest purpose for the branches of Christmas trees and other holiday greens is to use them as decorative wreathing for your otherwise somewhat bare perennial beds. …… One might choose to lay evergreen branches on some beds just to look wonderful through the winter, but these branches [...]

Posted in Garden Making Guidance, Things They Never Tell You | Tagged greens after christmas, horticultural practices, insulating plants, joe eck, north hill, Pepsico, perennial bed, protect plants, protecting plants, recycled christmas greens, reuse christmas trees, reuse decorations, stone garden designs inc., tree-cycle, winter preparation, wreath | 3 Responses

Winter Preparation

By Ellen Cool | Published: 2012/11/07

Anticipating the End of the Year Some More Things They Never Tell You. Save the final blowing and cleaning of your diverse planted beds until after the ground is cold hardened. For the thorough cleaning of beds in which perennial and self sowing plants reside, it is safer for those inhabitants if you wait until [...]

Posted in Garden Making Guidance, Things They Never Tell You, Your Reasoned Landscape | Tagged winter building, winter garden, winter preparation | 58 Responses

Shaping Your Landscape

By Ellen Cool | Published: 2012/10/07

Seeing the Shapes ………………………………………………………………R.S. A series of purposefully taken photographs can provide elevational views of your landscape and buildings for use as ‘working images’ to draw on or trace over. By enlarging such photos and sketching on them, you can begin to see how your ideas will look as you approach them in the 3 [...]

Posted in Garden Making Guidance, Landscape Guidance, Your Reasoned Landscape | Tagged cannabis holland, Cordage Institute, Dave Richards, DIY landscape design, Fletcher Steele, growing hemp, hemp, jute, land shaping, landscape design, landscape design tools, legal hemp, line, line level, Nylon history, prototypes, Racket Shreve, rope, rope history, ropewalk, sisal, Sonia Rykiel, Steven Speliotis, stone garden designs inc., Tim Brown Change By Design | 8 Responses

Stone Stories 1

By Ellen Cool | Published: 2012/08/02

What is the difference between ‘Rock’, ‘Stone’, and ‘Granite’ anyway? Saying bedrock, rock, stone or granite is like referring to the same Ornithological acquaintance in conversation as a ‘Bird’, a ‘Passerine’ or, more particularly, a ‘ Sparrow’. Bedrock or Rock are terms used to refer to large deposits of naturally occurring stone materials. The character [...]

Posted in Landscape Guidance, Things They Never Tell You, Your Reasoned Landscape | Tagged Babson Boulders, Babson Quarry, bedrock, cobble, cobblestone, dogtown, fieldstone, gloucester ma, granite, john mcphee, local stone, recycled stone, reused cobblestone, rock, Roger Babson, stone | 1 Response

Potatoes and Rocks on Long Island

By Ellen Cool | Published: 2012/07/31

The Rock who Tried to be a Potato When you hand harvest potatoes in Eastern Long Island you soon learn that the sandy earth coats the stones which also inhabit the earth there so thoroughly that, before washing, the two entities are often virtually indistinguishable. Their weight difference is the only clue sometimes. If you [...]

Posted in Garden Making Guidance, Plant Portraits, Things They Never Tell You | Tagged Long Island, long island potato, Long island stone, potatoes | 1 Response

Thalictrum rochebruneanum and Other Fabulous Flower Fireworks

By Ellen Cool | Published: 2012/07/02

Thalictrum rochebruneanum is a Star for the Fourth of July. You can expect Lavender Flowered Fireworks, every year. … Sometimes called ‘Meadow Rue’, or ‘Lavender Mist’, this plant is elegantly vertical. When in bloom, each individual is like a 6’ magic wand, with delicate foliage and perfect lavender sparkles, which fluff out at the top [...]

Posted in Garden Making Guidance, Long Blooming Plants, Plant Portraits | Tagged flower fireworks, fourth of july plant, fourth of July plants, hardy annuals, keeping self sowing plants, long blooming plants, miniature plants, self sowing plants, shade plant, shade tolerant plant, star plants, tall skinny plants, Thalictrum kiusianum, THALICTRUM ROCHEBRUNEANUM, Thalictrum rochebrunianum, Verbena bonariensis | 1 Response

Volunteer Vegetables : Edible, Ornamental…and they come back every year.

By Ellen Cool | Published: 2012/06/07

Red Leaf Shiso = Perilla frutescens crispa I first met the red leaf Japanese Perilla, also known as Shiso, at a supermarket in a plastic bag. A bouquet of 15 or so rooted, leafy stems of a plant I had never met were being sold with the herbs, next to the Basil, so I took [...]

Posted in Garden Making Guidance, Plant Portraits | Tagged antique garden ornaments, Ao-Shiso, asian vegetable, bronze fennel, Chinese medicine, come back food plants, edible ornamental, evergreenseeds.com, foeniculum purpureum, food plants, immune system, local plant nursery, local plants, marblehead plants, omega 3 acids, ornamental edible, Perilla, Perilla frutescens crispa, self sowing edible, self sowing herbs, shade herb, shi-so, Shiso, unusual plants | 5 Responses

Long Blooming Hardy Perennial Plants : Prizewinning Series, May 2012

By Ellen Cool | Published: 2012/05/08

May 2012 Awards A First Prize in the category of Longest Blooming, Hardy Perennial Self – Sowers goes to: Corydalis lutea and to Corydalis lutea alba. …… Easy, long flowering friends can be found among the many perennial choices in the plant world. Among the handsomest of hardy, long blooming plants, these two enthusiastic Corydalines [...]

Posted in Authorship, Garden Making Guidance, Long Blooming Plants, Most Popular Posts, Plant Portraits | Tagged a reasoned landscape, best friend plants, Corydalis lutea, Corydalis lutea alba, ellen cool, H. Lincoln Foster, hardy longblooming, Laura Louise Foster, long blooming, long blooming plants, Naturalising, prize winning plants, prizewinning plants, Rock Garden, Rock Gardening, self sowing plants, stone garden designs, street champions, street champs, street plants, tough plants | 1 Response

Hypertufa and Stone Container Gardens

By Ellen Cool | Published: 2012/03/07

The Smallest Gardens Miniature gardens can be very satisfying elements within the small personal landscapes that many of us inhabit. Hypertufa and stone troughs and pots are very versatile planting containers, remaining in place outdoors through all the seasons, and lasting for many years. After a while, when in touch with the earth’s surface and [...]

Posted in Garden Making Guidance, Long Blooming Plants, Plant Portraits, Your Reasoned Landscape | Tagged container garden, Corydalis lutea, Corydalis lutea alba, Cymbalaria alba compacta, encrusted saxifrage, fine gardening magazine, Helen Dawson, Hieracium pilosella, hypertufa, Kenilworth Ivy, making planters, Mini Hostas, miniature garden, miniature hostas, north american rock garden society, planting troughs, rock garden society, saxifraga callosa, Saxifraga cuneifolia, saxifraga umbrosa, Saxifrage, shaping planters, silver saxifrage, small garden, stone sink, sustainability, Thalictrum kiusianum, trough, troughs, tufa | 49 Responses

Happy Valentine’s Day……. Love, Earth

By Ellen Cool | Published: 2012/02/09

A Heartful Potato Plants are not exactly friends, but they’re friendly. This potato was born in a heart shape. It was harvested last year in Newtown, Connecticut at the Sticks and Stones Farm. This farm of moss and stone is a living gallery of ideas and instruction on how to design, build and live with [...]

Posted in Garden Making Guidance, Plant Portraits | Tagged potato, sticks and stones farm, valentine, valentine vegetable | Leave a comment

Reusing Antique Granites

By Ellen Cool | Published: 2012/01/01

Some of the handsomest granites for residential landscape use are those which were quarried and worked by stone cutters and masons a hundred years ago or more. With the wear of use and coloration from a century of exposure to the elements, these stones have a patina of age. The granite bedrock formed around 4 [...]

Posted in Things They Never Tell You, Your Reasoned Landscape | Tagged antique granite, granite, granite in the landscape, granite seat, granite table, granite types, low maintenance rocks, olde new england granite, recycled granite, recycling granite, reuse granite, reusing granite, rock and stone, Rockport ma, stone character, stone types, stone waterfall | 9 Responses

Granite Splitting for Reuse

By Ellen Cool | Published: 2011/12/28

Reshaping Granite for Reuse …Sometimes the shapes of the old pieces of granite one comes across are not precisely the dimensions needed, and this is where the splitting illustrated below can be helpful. This curbstone was 18″ or so wide and about 8″ thick, as they often were, and an 8″ x 8″ post was [...]

Posted in Your Reasoned Landscape | 3 Responses

Halloween Orange

By Ellen Cool | Published: 2011/10/30

An organised colony of mini Pumpkins for You. … Pumpkins in Kindergarten, early 1800s.

Posted in Garden Making Guidance, Plant Portraits | Tagged Halloween, orange, Pumpkins | Leave a comment

Long Blooming Hardy Plants : Prizewinning Series 2011

By Ellen Cool | Published: 2011/08/24

August Awards A First Prize in the category of Longest Blooming, Best Standing Self Sowers goes to: Linaria purpurea (purple) and to Linaria purpurea Canon J. Went (pink) Linaria purpurea Canon J. Went The pink form of this Linaria is named in honor of Canon J. Went (ecumenical), and was his horticultural ‘goal’ plant. This [...]

Posted in Garden Making Guidance, Long Blooming Plants, Most Popular Posts, Plant Portraits | Tagged easy plants, Linaria Canon Went, linaria pink, linaria purpurea, linaria purpurea canon went, long blooming, long blooming plants, longest blooming, prize winning plants, reliable perennials, roadside plants, self sowing, self sowing plants, street champions, street plants, tough plants | 26 Responses

Open Gardens in Marblehead 8/13/2011

By Ellen Cool | Published: 2011/08/06

Ellen Cool’s Garden at 19 Circle Street and two other Very Special Marblehead Gardens will be participating in the Open Days Program to Benefit The Garden Conservancy and The Marblehead Conservancy At any of the addresses, you just pay $5.00 to go in. We hope that you will bring your questions, enjoy the landscapes and [...]

Posted in Your Reasoned Landscape | Tagged ellen cool, garden conservancy, marblehead conservancy, marblehead events, marblehead garden tour, marblehead gardens, open days program, open garden days, opendaysprogram.org, parable, stone garden designs, stone garden designs inc., the garden conservancy | 3 Responses

Euphorbia, Beautiful but Sometimes Dangerous

By Ellen Cool | Published: 2011/07/06

EUPHORBIA WARNING!!! BE CAREFUL OF THE SAP !!! ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ When you trim ANY Euphorbia variety – and there are many lovely ones among the 2000 or so species in the Genus – Be Careful not to get the latex like sap that bleeds from cut stems onto your hands or face ……and Oh my Goodness, [...]

Posted in Long Blooming Plants, Plant Portraits, Things They Never Tell You, Your Reasoned Landscape | Tagged deer proof plants, deer repellant plants, Euphorbia, euphorbia allergy, Euphorbia chamaeleon, euphorbia cyparissias, Euphorbia diamond frost, euphorbia dulcis, euphorbia dulcis chameleon, euphorbia graminea, euphorbia graminea diamond frost, euphorbia pulcherrima, euphorbia sap, plant allergy, poinsettia, poinsettia sap, tecnu | 18 Responses

Long Blooming, Self Sowing, Comeback Plants

By Ellen Cool | Published: 2011/04/10

Prizewinning Naturalising Plants : Annuals and Perennials .Self Sowing Comeback Plants for Zone 5BIt is a good feeling to have some favorite plants that you know are So Happy in your place that they will be coming back of their own accord, year after year, through generations of new individuals. These are your Naturalisers. Some [...]

Posted in Garden Making Guidance, Long Blooming Plants, Most Popular Posts, Plant Portraits | Tagged Alyssum snow crystals, annuals, annuals come back, California poppy, comeback plants, Corydalis lutea, Corydalis lutea alba, Delosperma cooperei, Eschscholzia californica, euphorbia cyparissias, Gypsophila muralis, Johnny Jumpups, Linaria Canon Went, Lobularia maritima snow crystals, long blooming plants, longblooming plants, longest blooming, Naturalisers, Naturalising, perennials, plants that self sow, prize winning plants, prizewinning plants, self sower, self sowing, self sowing plants, site sowing, subtractive gardening, viola koreana, Viola tricolor | 351 Responses

Snowy Valentines

By Ellen Cool | Published: 2011/02/14

Embossed Earth ……. Two touching stones in green embossed earth, moss joined each warm summer – Now in snow blanketing. Comforted. Soft impressions of themselves together, Bonded forms in a wide landscape of white. ……. …… …..……….

Posted in Authorship, Your Reasoned Landscape | Tagged snow, snow valentine, snowy, valentine | 5 Responses

Snow, Brooms and Squirrels

By Ellen Cool | Published: 2011/01/21

The Old Worn Corn Broom A friendly old Corn broom is indispensable for sweeping snow off trees and shrubs in the winter and for freeing frisbees, balls and balloons in the other seasons. Its bristles softened and shortened by time, usually on an angle from all the corner work it has tried to do [...]

Posted in Garden Making Guidance, Things They Never Tell You | Tagged broom history, brooms, corn broom, edible wreath, edible wreaths, feeding squirrels, Grace Jeffers, shaker design, snow, snow removal, sorghum bicolor, squirrel nest, squirrels, squirrels nest, The Statement | 40 Responses

Designing Your Landscape : Hard Materials

By Ellen Cool | Published: 2010/12/28

Choosing your Materials Select a Family of Hard Materials from the Beginning. It is best to choose the family of things you will be using together in the landscape for your hard materials ‘palette’ before you try to think about your built projects in detail since, in the end, these early choices will affect the [...]

Posted in Landscape Guidance, Most Popular Posts, Things They Never Tell You, Your Reasoned Landscape | Tagged bluestone, building in stone, Chatto, choosing stone, Christopher Alexander, crushed stone, design planning, F.A Waugh, gravel, hard materials design, hardscape, kind of stone, land design, landscape advice, landscape design, landscape planning, peastone, Ruys, stone character, stone choices, stone color, stone design, stone garden designs inc., stone types | 143 Responses

Wreathing the Beds

By Ellen Cool | Published: 2010/12/19

Greens After Christmas A second harvest purpose for the branches of Christmas trees and other holiday greens is to use them as decorative wreathing for your otherwise somewhat bare perennial beds. …… One might choose to lay evergreen branches on some beds just to look wonderful through the winter, but these branches can also do [...]

Posted in Garden Making Guidance, Things They Never Tell You, Your Reasoned Landscape | Tagged ecotome, greens after christmas, heaving, joe eck, north hill, plant protection, protect perennial, protect plants, protecting plants winter, recycle christmas tree, reuse christmas tree, second harvest, wayne winterrowd, winter preparation, winter protection | 10 Responses

Winter Arrangements, Indoors and Out

By Ellen Cool | Published: 2010/11/28

In my landscapes, evergreen branches that will need to be pruned anyway wait for that attention until I can use their lovely offcuts for decorative winter purposes. …………. You will see your tree and shrub elements alone in the winter, when there are fewer other plants around to distract you. It is a good time [...]

Posted in Garden Making Guidance, Things They Never Tell You, Your Reasoned Landscape | Tagged evergreen branches, evergreen Hollies, Ilex decidua, Ilex sparkleberry, Ilex verticillata, local harvest, pieris japonica, pruning hollies, tree cuttings, Winter Arrangements | 20 Responses