In May when our band of GGC volunteers first visited Emily Cleaveland’s (better known as The Dahlia Lady) property  and walked through the flat land where native plants would grow, we thought “piece of cake.” Then the rains came, and came, and came, and turned the landscape into a lush jungle. The good news was that there would be lots of healthy native plants and ferns for people to see. The bad news was that we had to keep clearing the path which kept getting overrun.
 
Grantham Garden Club volunteers are a sturdy bunch so, undeterred, they attacked that path. They brought weed-whackers, rakes, clippers, wheelbarrows, and shovels. Emily, who so graciously welcomed us to use her land, provided lots of guidance, tools, and elbow grease. 
 
Moments after a hemlock tree in Maureen Connelly’s yard was chopped down, it was chipped into little bits and driven to the native plant trail where we spread it over the path.
 
Meanwhile, Emily was planting, fertilizing, and applying her usual tender loving care to her dahlia gardens. Wait until you see her spectacular dahlias! Emily will explain to visitors how she does her magic, while GGC’er Leslie Keeling will lead folks on tours through the native plant trail.
 
People who come to the August 14th Open House can opt to take a flyer that explains what each of the 39 numbered trees, shrubs, and wildflowers are, or they can take the plunge and participate in a “Name the Native Plant” game. The correct responses spell out a mysterious message that only Emily knows. By writing their name and contact info on the back or the decoded message, people can enter a drawing with the winner receiving a fresh bouquet of dahlias.
 
Like the very popular Mystery Garden Tour, we are suggesting a donation of $15 from each visitor. We’ll also be selling flower note cards, goat milk soap, yummy baked goods (thanks to other GGC volunteers), and plants. We hope to raise lots of money to fund scholarships, grants, educational programs, and civic gardens.
 
Plan to join us on Saturday, August 14th, between 1:00 and 4:00 for a delightful afternoon. The address is 256 Hogg Hill Road in Springfield (but Google Maps thinks it is Grantham - so enter that if you use Google maps).
 
You won’t be disappointed.

​From the bright flower signs showing the locations of the mystery gardens to the maps handed out sending visitors to different starting places to alleviate traffic jams, everything was carefully planned. The hard working team of Maryellen DeJong, Janie Clark, Pat Brooks, and Paul Mercier started planning the Mystery Garden tour in February when the gardens were under a foot of snow.
 
The Grantham Garden Club conducted seven mystery garden tours starting in 2008, but this one was different. The Pandemic was the big unknown back in February before vaccinations were available. In addition to picking amazing gardens, the committee took their size into consideration in case social distancing was still recommended. The Club agreed that walking in beautiful flowers and seeing people in person was very much needed. They were so right.
 
Historically the Club raised money through an annual spring plant sale, but it had to be cancelled for the last two years. So for the first time, donations were requested to help the club fund scholarships, grants, and educational programs for the community, and to help the Club maintain the civic gardens around town.  In addition pop up markets as some of the gardens sold goat milk soap, fresh baked cookies, perennials, and note cards with photos of club members’ flowers.
 
Another benefit of the tour was the wealth of knowledge the owners and volunteers shared with avid gardeners. I overheard lots of very specific questions about plants, soil, fertilizers and all kind of gardening talk. For myself, I just enjoyed all seven gardens. Each one reflected the gardener’s personality. Susan Neet Goodwin’s garden showed her artistic sensibilities and highlighted her environments concerns by illustrating how you weave a solar installation into a garden. Jane Verdrager peppered her garden with lots of whimsy including an antique baby crib, a bird cage, and an old water pump. Paul Mercier created an ecological haven on his unique property. Janie Clark’s garden is a wonderful example of a lush, colorful garden that gets very little sunshine. Sally Findley, Sheila Schulman and Liz Knox’s not only have lovely gardens but also have water views.
 
Thirty-seven volunteers helped make the day a delight for the more than 120 people who oohed and aahed when the much anticipated mystery gardens were finally revealed. 

A wonderful way to step into the past is a visit to Muster Field Farm, a short 20-minute drive from Grantham. Lovers Lane, a narrow dirt road through a thick forest, leads to the farm and is the perfect way to enter your trip back in time.

Matthew Harvey and his family settled there in 1772. One cold winter night, their first house burned down. Neighbors got together and made a one-room home complete with a fireplace in one day. That tiny house was added to and still stands there to this day.

The spirit of neighbors helping neighbors is very much alive today as a team of dedicated volunteers work the farm and maintain the historic farm buildings and artifacts that were brought there for visitors to see. I spoke with a few volunteers who happily answered my many questions. When I saw a bunch of just-picked beets being carried away, I hurried to the farm stand which is a re-purposed chicken house. Produce is purchased using the honor system with money left and change made from an old tin box with a picture of George Washington’s honest face. (That evening I roasted my beets and can report that they were scrumptious.)

Muster Field Farm was a place where citizen soldiers from Sutton and the surrounding towns would drill and parade. The first recorded muster was held there in 1787. Although the main reasons for the musters were to prepare men to defend their towns or join the army as a group, the annual gatherings were a great excuse to party. I imagine many of the troops and their families camped out and enjoyed communal dinners and impromptu dances.

​If you stand very still and gaze across the flat land, you can almost hear the faint sounds of a fiddle playing along with a subtle whisper telling you to “remember.” 

Lots of folks have encouraged me to visit New London’s Tracy Library garden which I never seemed to get around to doing. When I came across John Lennon’s quote “Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans” I scolded myself. As writer of this blog and an avid flower photographer, what was I waiting for?

I finally went a month ago and have been back three times since. Now that I know where it is (half way between Colby-Sawyer College and Tuckers Restaurant, but across the street and behind the library), I’ll make a point of stopping by whenever I’m in New London. Every time I go, there are different flowers and plants to see.  A month ago, the garden was surrounded by lilac bushes of various hues. Right now 45 rose bushes are in bloom.  The difficulty in putting together this blog was deciding which flower photos to omit because I couldn’t possibly include them all.
 
In 1926 Jane Tracy summered in New London and had the foresight and finances to have a library built and, for the icing on the cake, the design and planting of the garden behind it. She hired the Olmsted Brothers’ landscape architectural company to design the garden. Their firm also designed gardens in Acadia National Park and Yosemite Valley not to mention the entire park systems of Portland, Oregon, the City of Roses.
 
Originally the garden park consisted of four beds of flowers around a children’s wading pool. The stonewall perimeter enclosed a variety of shrubs, vines and trees. When Mrs. Tracy died in 1944, the garden beds were grassed over, the pool was filled with dirt, and the hedges removed. Then in 2000 when the Tracy Library was renovated, it was the right time to bring back the garden. The New London Garden Club and the library joined forces and raised $175,000 to restore this half-acre plot of land and rebuilding began in May of 2002. A bronze water fountain made by well known sculptural metalsmith Dimitri Gerakaris replaced the wading pool. The garden is lovingly maintained by a head gardener and an army of volunteers and is a sight to behold. 

This unseasonal photo is a ploy to get you to learn ‘the rest of the story’ about this secret garden. The garden itself isn’t a secret to folks who go for a walk at Grantham’s Brookside Park this time of year. For some reason, I mostly visit the park on brisk winter days with the rushing water partially covered by snow as shown in the picture above. It’s one of my go-to short walks when I need a little grounding.
 
During yesterday’s warm and sunny summer day, I strolled along the brook and then I took a path to a clearing and came upon a delightful garden full of Sweet Williams. These flowers were not escapees that happened to grow there. Someone took some time, efforts, cash, and a lot of TLC.
 
If you haven’t seen the garden, I encourage you to stop at Brookside Park on old Rte. 10 north of Rumbrook.  Cross the wonderful volunteer-constructed bridge to the trail. The beginning of the trail looks wheel-chair accessible and do-able for folks with canes or walkers. Here’s another little tidbit you might not have known about Brookside Park: Emil Hanslin, the creator of the Master Plan for Eastman back in the late 60s, donated the land to the town of Grantham in 1984 along with his son Tony. 
 
I looked around for clues for the secret gardener's identity. There were notes posted on a nearby information kiosk thanking some men for mending its roof and for bags of manure and as well as thanking Dunkin’ Donuts for bags of coffee grounds.* I suspect that these aren’t the people who made the garden. If you or someone you know planted this garden, please reply in the comments and let us all know. Or if you’d prefer, you can keep it a secret.  

*Used coffee grounds add organic material to the soil which improved drainage, water retention, and aeration.    The grounds also help microorganisms beneficial to plant growth as well as attract earthworm who enjoy a little caffeine pick-me-up. 

​While waking around gardens and hiking in the woods and bogs, I have seen a few creepy looking plants among the vast majority of attractive ones. I took pictures thinking I would never use them but decided to share them with you for a bit of fun. Some of the scary looking plants were just starting to develop and will eventually become beautiful, but I like to photograph them in their Ugly Duckling stage. Most of my photos are of that variety. Others are destined to never blossom but remain beasts their whole lives. Here’s an example:
 
While visiting the Philrick-Cricenti Bog in New London the other day with my hiking group, a keen-eyed hiker pointed out a pitcher plant. The more we looked, the more we saw—hundreds of insect eating pitcher plants. Unlike their more famous relative, the Venus flytrap, pitcher plants don't close up once an insect or small reptile wanders inside. The pitcher plant's shape doesn’t allow the prey to escape. They are stuck inside where they meet a gruesome end.

One of the bug-eating plants was surely the inspiration for Little Shop of Horrors, a very campy 60’s low budget movie that became a popular musical where humans foolishly answer Audry II's plea to "Feed Me." Ultimately these giant plants take over the world. It's a hoot.
 
By way of apology to all these plants, I realize that they all have their roles and fill important niches. Without them, we would live in a very different place. Vive la différence

New GGC member Betty Kargacos invited me to visit her property on the golf course that has an amazing array of pink lady slipper orchids. There must have been 50 in groups or pairs or standing alone all over her woodsy backyard. Betty’s neighbors on either side have similar yards but the lady slippers only grow in Betty’s. She told me that new plants pop up every year. All the pictures here are of Betty’s flowers.

Lady slippers are very difficult to pollinate. A bee that manages to navigate down the narrow opening to the pouch will be disappointed to find pollen but no nectar. The savvy bees look elsewhere for pollen but some bees give the lady slippers a few tries before giving up—just enough to pollinate a small percentage each year. The pollinated plants produce thousands of tiny seeds that are as small as dust and are dispersed by the wind. The seeds depend on wild soil fungi to germinate and grow which make them rare in the wild and almost impossible to domesticate. Another obstacle is that it takes 10 to 17 years before it matures enough to bloom for the first time.

While researching lady slippers, I learned of a folklore about an Ojibwe* girl named Aki who saved her village after most of the people came down with a horrible sickness. A well respected medicine woman who made life-saving medicine lived many miles away making it impossible for any sick person to make the journey. Although she was small for her age, Aki was a fast runner and bravely volunteered to make the trip. It took Aki many days to cross the frozen lake and find the medicine woman who lived deep in the forest. The journey back to her village was even more difficult when a blizzard hindered her progress and caused her to lose her moccasins in the deep snow but she never let go of the precious medicine. ​Aki barely made it back to her village before she collapsed. The medicine she brought saved her people and herself. That spring, on the exact spots where Aki had stepped with her bare feet on her perilous journey, lady slippers grew. The Ojibwe call the lady slippers “Moccasin Shoes.”   
​
*The Ojibwe number approximately 320 thousand in the United States and 160 thousand in Canada today. They are known for their oral history of which this story is one

​I have seen hundreds of trilliums this spring and have a somewhat ambivalent relationship with them. Most of them are bashful and bend their blossoms down to the earth making them sometimes impossible to photograph. I recently learned that there are 43 known species of trillium so I shouldn’t have been surprised when I saw some different looking trilliums growing in Janie Clark’s garden. I asked Janie about her bold trilliums,  and her answer resulted in this blog. 
 
When Janie was a young mother living in Albion, Michigan, she learned that an old Victorian house nearby was going to be razed to make room for a parking lot. Janie immediately thought of the trilliums that she knew grew there. She grabbed her children, some buckets, and her trowel; and marched over to the house , carefully dug up the trilliums, and replanted them in her yard. Later, more rescued trilliums joined the pack. Janie often hiked on a trail where beautiful trilliums grew right on the path. She heard that they were going to plow the trail to widen it for hikers. You guessed it, Janie to the rescue again.
 
Many years later Janie and her husband Russ retired and moved from Michigan. The trillium plants rode more than 1,000 miles with them to their new home on Trillium Lane in Grantham, New Hampshire. I asked if she bought her house because of her street address given her affinity for trilliums but she told me that after looking a dozens of homes, she knew this was the one when she saw the fireplace. Russ did his Geological Science PhD dissertation on the granites of south-central New Hampshire—the same granite as the fireplace. 
 
Call it fate or karma or coincidence, but some things are meant to be.

​As you may know, I love taking pictures of flowers, but this week I’m branching out to their much larger relatives, the trees—specifically the trees at Balch Hills.
 
While on a Hanover Conservancy led wildflower and blossoms walk on Mother’s Day, I couldn’t help notice and photograph these gentle giants. Our group was introduced to the impressive Grafton County Champion Northern Red Oak. To learn more about what I was seeing, I wrote to Adair Mulligan who is the Executive Director of the Hanover Conservancy. I learned from Adair  that the Champion Oak was crowned in 2014 when it was measured by a Big Tree Steward who recorded that it was 110 feet tall, 196 inches in circumference, and had a crown spread of 80 feet. She said that several of the large trees on Balch Hill may date from the time of Hanover’s settlement over 250 years ago.
 
Adair told me about another tree there on Balch Hill that would have been the county champion but its huge lower limb broke off the mighty oak. It was affectionately known as “the Venus de Milo." It has since completely fallen down. Now it serves as refuge and food for animals, birds, and insect so continues to contribute to the land. 
 
The NH Big Tree Program, a part of UNH Cooperative Extension, is a network of volunteers throughout the state who hunt for and measure large trees. Anyone can log onto their website and recommend a tree.   The trees are checked every 10 years to make sure they’re still standing and to re-measure them. If you’re looking for a new hobby or want to add some excitement to your hikes, search for giant trees, and don’t forget your measuring tape.