Salem Garden Club – The Salem Garden

The Salem Garden Club’s 2017 Garden Stroll

Every other year the Salem Garden Club holds a garden tour, officially called the “stroll”. This year’s tour highlighted gardens on Hamilton, Chestnut, Federal, Lynn and River Streets and I truly believe that it was the best ever! Michael and I enjoyed the tour before and after my volunteer time in one of the gardens on River Street and I quickly took photos as I went along. This slideshow is a simple collection of my favorites… They’re not too fancy, but I did manage to capture many of the little details that caught my eye in each wonderful space.

Enjoy!

Love, Michele

ps/ 5pm on Friday– This post began as a slideshow and had big technical problems, so I just changed the pictures to individual images. Hope that improves your viewing experience! xoxo

It’s Time to Plant the Pansies!

I know, I know, it’s still cold out, but, it really is time to plant the pansies!

I was buying them yesterday and several other customers in the store asked me if they could go outside yet.

Yes they can!

Pansies will do just fine in early spring weather. I’ve even had them winter over in some of our milder years.

I planted in three different locations today.

My first stop was my own porch:

I’m in love with these tiny little blooms.

Here they are in the bigger pot. I combined tulips, pansies and hyacinth with the hope that the tulips and hyacinth will be perfect for Easter next Sunday. My backup plan is to add blooming forsythia if the tulips are fading.

My next planting stop was our church. I added pansies to the pots of artificial forsythia and daffodils that my friend Betsey had started.

The front doors of Tabernacle Church look welcoming and ready for Palm Sunday!

After hitting the church, I crossed the street and met the Salem Garden Club to help plant seven urns that are located in the center of our downtown. I joined the garden club in September and was thrilled to be part of the action out there today! It’s fun to spend time with people who love the garden as much as I do!

I love, love, love the creativity that went into the design this season. Spring cleaning… Salem witch… spring.. you can interpret this in many different ways. The colors and whimsey shout out that spring has arrived! And it has, tomorrow’s weather forecast is for 60 degrees, with several warm days as the week goes on.

So, it’s really time to plant the pansies! Don’t be afraid, they’re ready and I’ll bet you are too.

I’m largely away from the Salem Garden, but I’m hoping to pick up now that the season is here. We’ll see.. I’m trying to commit to writing a weekly post at a minimum. This full time work away from home gig is tricky. It’s great to be engaged at work and to be making some money, but it’s hard on my family. I think things are getting better as we set up systems as a family to get things done and in some cases “adjust our expectations” about what’s realistic and important, but it’s still a work in progress. Anyway, thanks for visiting and catching up with me. I’m hoping to offer some good posts in the coming months!

Be sure to check in and let me know how your garden is growing!

Love, Michele

Strolling in Salem Gardens, A Garden Tour!

This weekend is the Salem Garden Club’s Garden Stroll and I had a wonderful time “strolling” and taking in gardens all around the Common yesterday. The gardens were beautiful and the members and volunteers so welcoming along the way. Every stop was inspiring and interesting and fun! There was even an adaptive garden! I took lots of photos so here’s a gallery for you to enjoy. Click on any one to enlarge them and view as a slideshow. If you live locally you can still enjoy the tour this afternoon. Tickets are available at the Salem Common. It looks like it’s going to be a great day to get out there! Michele

Great Achievement at Salem High and 1000 Varieties of Pears in Salem!

It’s nice to wake up at 5:45am to good and interesting news in the paper.

The front page story in today’s Salem News is about our high school’s AP program. The rate of students taking advanced placement classes has risen dramatically and the success rate on completion has too! Here’s today’s coverage of the Secretary of Education’s visit and the Massachusetts Math and Science Initiative Program’s recognition of our students. This creative program provides cash incentive to students who pass the AP exams, and to their teachers. My oldest son has benefited greatly from this program and I hope that his siblings will too. The Salem Public School system has it’s challenges but the schools, students, parents and community are working tirelessly to overcome them. I’m so proud that my children attend the Salem Public Schools. Their education is amazing in many, many ways.

I also have to share this interesting letter to the editor, written by Jeanne Stella of Salem. It describes some of the horticultural history of the northern part of Salem and how the street names reflect that history. North Salem was once farm land and orchards. Imagine growing 3000 trees, with 1000 varieties of pears! You can read Jeanne Stella’s letter here. We are a city of gardeners. It’s in the soil and it’s passed down through many generations!

I’m hoping to do a little bit of Halloween touring later today and tomorrow. We’ll see where the kids and I land. Photos will be coming!

Enjoy everything!

Michele