Category Archives: Your Reasoned Landscape

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 [...]

Also posted in Plant Portraits, Things They Never Tell You | 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

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 [...]

Also posted in Garden Making Guidance, Things They Never Tell You | 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 [...]

Also posted in Garden Making Guidance, Landscape Guidance | 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 [...]

Also posted in Landscape Guidance, Things They Never Tell You | 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

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 [...]

Also posted in Garden Making Guidance, Long Blooming Plants, Plant Portraits | 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 | 50 Responses

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 [...]

Also posted in Things They Never Tell You | 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

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, [...]

Also posted in Long Blooming Plants, Plant Portraits, Things They Never Tell You | 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

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. ……. …… …..……….

Also posted in Authorship | Tagged snow, snow valentine, snowy, valentine | 5 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 [...]

Also posted in Landscape Guidance, Most Popular Posts, Things They Never Tell You | 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 [...]

Also posted in Garden Making Guidance, Things They Never Tell You | 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 [...]

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

Dear Readers

By Ellen Cool | Published: 2010/11/24

* In the Spirit of Thanksgiving I wanted to thank you all for your thoughtful comments. They do encourage the work. I don’t answer comments because if I did I would never have time to write my articles, but I do think about the things you say, and my writing will reflect your input. Please [...]

Also posted in Authorship, Garden Making Guidance, Things They Never Tell You | Tagged design with nature, Garden in the Woods, Ian Stewart, local Turkey, New England Wildflower, Thanksgiving, Thematic Ian Stewart | 7 Responses

Your Ecotome

By Ellen Cool | Published: 2010/11/22

ECOTOME This self describing noun is not much in current use, yet it would seem to me by its etymological origins that it could usefully be incorporated when referring to ones own local ecological context. The ‘local ecotome’ would refer to the surrounding area of which you are a part, the one whose ecological realities [...]

Also posted in Garden Making Guidance, Most Popular Posts, Things They Never Tell You | Tagged ecology, ecotome, habitat, landscape, local ecology, local ecotome, local habitat, your ecotome | 246 Responses

Fall Tending

By Ellen Cool | Published: 2010/11/22

Good Housekeeping Tending your gardens thoroughly in fall will help all the winter compositions to show at their best. There shold be nothing to detract from the pictures, even in this season. Most herbaceous plants are trimmed down close to the earth now, but any that still look nice, by flowering or being evergreen, perhaps [...]

Also posted in Garden Making Guidance, Plant Portraits, Things They Never Tell You | Tagged blowers, compost, December, decomposition, Good Housekeeping, mulch, topdressing, using compost | 5 Responses

November Nor’easter

By Ellen Cool | Published: 2010/11/14

………………………………………………………………. * The small grove of Maples I pass each late night Today were moon – lit Cross black blue and star white. …………… Nor’easter behind them, Their yellow leaf hands Waved wildly at me, Those last leaves of the stand. ……………… Soon to be fallen, tonight was so dear, “Till next year” we said [...]

Also posted in Garden Making Guidance, Long Blooming Plants, Plant Portraits, Things They Never Tell You | Tagged Corydalis lutea alba, John Novak, Laura Louise Foster, Lincoln Foster, maple poem, Racket Shreve, Rock Gardening, Timmy Foster | 10 Responses

Plants as Beings

By Ellen Cool | Published: 2010/09/26

Plants are such dynamic living beings that ‘It’ just never seems to me to be the right pronoun to use in conversational and prose references. As one Horticulturally minded friend has said, “referring to a plant as ‘It’ is absolutely Rude” For fun, try referring to particular plants, shrubs and trees too, as ‘he or [...]

Also posted in Garden Making Guidance, Plant Portraits, Things They Never Tell You | Tagged Jennifer Pederson, papaver rupifragum, plant friends, plant names, plant pronouns | 35 Responses

Encouragement

By Ellen Cool | Published: 2010/08/23

The Tuft of Flowers ………………………..Robert Frost I went to turn the grass once after one Who mowed it in the dew before the sun. The dew was gone that made his blade so keen Before I came to view the leveled scene. I looked for him behind an isle of trees; I listened for his [...]

Also posted in Garden Making Guidance, Plant Portraits, Things They Never Tell You | Tagged .Robert Frost, Tuft of Flowers | 14 Responses

Propagating your Clematis

By Ellen Cool | Published: 2010/08/02

Certain methods of propagation are so simple that it would be a shame not to use them. If you take a stem or branch of some cherished woody plant, bend it down and bury it a few inches (or more) in the ground adjacent to the parent, you will have a good chance of getting [...]

Also posted in Garden Making Guidance, Long Blooming Plants, Plant Portraits, Things They Never Tell You | Tagged gardeners edge.com, layering clematis, multiplying clematis, multiplying vines, propagating clematis, Rooting Horomone | 60 Responses

Pruning Your Clematis

By Ellen Cool | Published: 2010/08/01

Prune After Flowering. This is the the General rule for all Clematis, as it is for most plant materials. But When After? This is the Question that has the Longer Answer, but the shortcut to remembering easily what to do and not to do is contained in this rhyme : CONCERNING FALL CLEANUP “If it [...]

Also posted in Garden Making Guidance, Long Blooming Plants, Most Popular Posts, Plant Portraits | Tagged choosing clematis, clematis, early clematis, late clematis, long blooming clematis, Long Blooming vines, pruning clematis, training clematis | 51 Responses

The Longest Blooming Clematis of my Acquaintance

By Ellen Cool | Published: 2010/08/01

LONG BLOOMING SMALL FLOWERED CLEMATIS In my experience, the longest blooming Clematis are mostly found among the smaller flowered kinds. Their myriads of small sized flowers combine to make as exciting a show as any of the large flowered Clematis can offer. I find that their stems and foliage also last more nicely and [...]

Also posted in Garden Making Guidance, Long Blooming Plants, Plant Portraits | Tagged clematis, clematis betty corning, clematis betty corning history, clematis crispa, clematis julia correvon, clematis julia correvon history, Clematis viticella, long blooming clematis, prize winning clematis, pruning clematis vines, Rose Jeanne la Joie, small flowered clematis, training clematis | 395 Responses

Clematis Clues

By Ellen Cool | Published: 2010/07/30

Clematis Vines Training and Pruning

Also posted in Garden Making Guidance, Long Blooming Plants, Most Popular Posts, Plant Portraits, Things They Never Tell You | Tagged bosmere lever loops, clematis betty corning, clematis hagley, clematis princess diana, if it blooms before june dont prune, pruning clematis vines, training clematis | 51 Responses

Some Things They Never Tell You

By Ellen Cool | Published: 2010/07/28

…..About Planting Trees and Shrubs Decide and then tag the best faces of your chosen individuals in the nursery. Look for the best faces of your chosen trees and shrubs when they are standing relaxed in the nursery. Tie a ribbon or somesuch to a branch at the front and center of the plant’s face [...]

Also posted in Garden Making Guidance, Landscape Guidance, Plant Portraits, Things They Never Tell You | Tagged planting, planting shrubs, planting tips, planting trees, propagating clematis, restoring landscape, transplanting shrubs | 121 Responses