bwisegardening

Cultivating a Culture of Gardening™

Friday, March 30, 2012

Moss Mountain Farm - An Early Spring Visit to P Allen Smith's Garden Home



Out working on the farm, P Allen Smith road his bike up to the house to greet all of us who came to visit his farm last week-end. I went with a group of friends gathered for a 30 year reunion.


P Allen Smith and lovable Angel welcome folks to their garden home.
This was my favorite room - the 2nd floor sleeping porch,

sleeping porch comes with a very inviting copper bathtub.
And the view from the porch will make you want to visit every season.
Coming down the front stairs
then I see THE TREE - glimpsed looking out P Allen's front door.
Lunch was served here, in the updated barn.Called there by
The lunch bell.
A glimpse into P Allen's art studio.





P Allen's containers - loved getting ideas from him.
The poultry shedsSo whaddaya lookin' at?!



Can't wait to come back in May for Garden2Blog2012!

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Monday, March 26, 2012

March-ing Into Memories






When I first realized that I had some big activities scheduled for every week-end during the month of March, I started to get anxious. March is an intense month of preparation for the extremely intense hours of operation that occur in April and May for all of us in the landscape industry. For the past eight years, since I've been working for Southern Land Company, my family has come to accept the fact that starting the first of April, they will see very little of me until about the second week of June. So March normally is my time to tend to family chores (get the gardens ready on the week-ends, sit on the back porch with hubby and whichever sons show up for the weekend, plan all end of school parties that will inevitably be suggested in the waning days of May), yet I found my self dodging tornadoes at Montgomery Bell State Park with friends from years past the first week-end of March,that included a Facebook flashback to fourteen years ago and a girlfriend weekend to Florida,
traipsing through the Hermitage and east Nashville the second weekend of March with my longtime friends from Chicago,
spending the day with high school friends from Macon, Georgia, the 3rd weekend of March,and last week-end was a whirlwind of activity (which included a trip to P. Allen Smith's Moss Mountain Garden Home!) in Little Rock, Arkansas with friends from those early days of married life.

(I have to give a big thank-you to Caroline and Alvin Laser for rescuing me from a long wait on standby at the airport and giving me a ride back to Nashville. What an entertaining 6 hour drive you both made that trip to be!)
The month was full, the garden has yet to be weeded, the family is already feeling a good bit neglected, but I have to look back and see how deeply rich my life has been - transplanted throughout the years into rich fields of friendship around the country, watered with loving guidance of wise mentors, producing blooming relationships that last through the decades. My life is a garden of memories that has had the refreshing rain of renewal fall upon it.

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Monday, March 12, 2012

Week-end Retreat



A couple of weekends ago I headed off to Montgomery Bell State Park for a few days of retreat with the girls. We had been there less than five minutes when we were all herded to the lodge basement because a tornado was heading our way.

There were, in fact, three tornadoes that made our Friday afternoon especially memorable, and that fortunately left the Park with little more than wind and some hail damage.Golf ball sized hail looked like a soft dusting of snow across the lake.

The following morning brought cool temps, a misty lake, and sun kissed trees

I loved how these trees' limbs framed the rising mist off the lake.

Calm after the storm - all that a retreat is made to be.

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Sunday, March 4, 2012

Signs of Spring 2012


Peek over my fence and you'll start to see a few signs that winter is waning. Hyacinths starting to bloom.

Pieris japonica with it's tousled blooms.


Helleborus 'Pink Lady' above and Spirea 'Bridal Veil' below

In the past week we've had a snow shower, thunderstorms, tornados, and temperature ranging from the lower 30s to the upper 70s. Wacky weather but here are a few signs of spring around my house.Can you find the clashing spot of red in these magenta blossoms of my Magnolia 'Jane'?


Mr. Cardinal is making his presence known celebrating the coming spring!

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