Martha’s Blog

Autumn’s Surprises

Mon, 27 Sep 2010 15:30:41 -0400

As I walk up the path to my front door, l love to pause and watch the butterflies floating around the garden. They land and take off from the asters that are just beginning to bloom as other flowers go to seed. The front garden looks a bit unruly now that autumn has arrived.

I brought home a packet of parsley plants and plopped them onto a pot by the front door until I had a free moment. The next day as I watered the other plants in the pot, I discovered a stowaway -- a green and black tiger swallowtail caterpillar. He was tiny and merrily munching away. Everyday he got bigger and bigger, and the parsley plants got smaller and smaller.

Today when I looked, he was gone. He had left the pot’s confining world and set off into the expansive world of the garden for his transformation. Now when I pause along the path, I’ll look for an elegant tiger swallowtail sailing by. It may be my little stowaway all grown up and off to see the world.

Check out my new correspondence cards in the online store. The cards’ paintings celebrate autumn’s butterflies as they feast on fall’s flowers.

Priscilla’s Garden

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 11:58:44 -0400

Gardens are more than simple reflections of the gardener who created them. A garden reveals its creator’s spirit in subtle and obvious ways and why I like to identify each garden’s creator. This painting of a springtime moment is from the garden of my sister Priscilla and one of my most popular note card images.

When Priscilla’s courageous battle with breast cancer ended this spring, others began tending her gardens. She had created gardens around her stone farmhouse and in the woods surrounding her family’s summer cottage. Her gardens reflect her restless exuberance, and her borders spill over the edge. An avid plant collector, she was always on the hunt for an unusual, intriguing plant to add to yet another corner of her garden. Her patio is filled with exotic pots from her travels and adventures -- each one holding a story that she loved to tell.

As summer began, friends filled her patio pots with bright colors. I chose to tend her garden in the woods. I created gatherings of pots full of the colors she loved to greet her family and visitors to the cottage. As I worked, I felt yet another gift of her garden -- how her spirit will live on for all to see.

Lenten Roses

Sat, 27 Mar 2010 20:37:47 -0400

Spring has arrived! In the woods behind our house, Lenten roses are unfurling. Years ago, I was given three plants from a gardener who loved watching them bloom in a neighbor’s garden. I had never encountered a Lenten rose before and decided to plant each one in a different section of the woods to see which one would survive. To my astonishment, all three plants survived and flourished in the decaying leaves under the mighty white oaks that rule our woods.

After a few years, small plants began appearing near the original Lenten roses. I dug up these new offsprings each spring and moved them to other parts of the woods and the front yard. Now Lenten roses are everywhere, their hanging blossoms nodding shyly in the spring breezes. To discover how beautiful these blossoms are, I lift them up to take a peek.

The Lenten roses’ colors are subtle, varying hues of mauve, purple, and burgundy. What a contrast to the brilliant yellow of their companions, the bold daffodils, that stand tall trumpeting spring’s arrival. No need to pick up their blossoms to take a peek. Daffodils look you right in the eye.

What a wonderful spring duet - the shy Lenten rose and the bold daffodil! In their honor, I have created two cards which you can find in my note card collection.

Butterflies and Parsley

Tue, 9 Feb 2010 12:43:13 -0500

I love planting herbs at the foot of my kitchen steps. As I cook, I can run down and quickly clip basil and chives for summer salads or thyme for soup. My rosemary plant has become a dowager of such dignity that she rivals the nearby azalea plant.

Years ago when I began growing herbs, a beautiful stand of parsley thrived near the drip of the garden hose. One day I went to clip parsley sprigs and discovered camouflaged caterpillars, a brilliant chartreuse, busy devouring my parsley. I was so upset I cut off all the sprigs that had caterpillars and moved the munchers to another part of the garden, far away from the kitchen steps. I didn’t realize who those caterpillars were until later when I encountered them in my insect book. They were swallowtail butterflies in waiting. I apologized to all the tiger swallowtails I met in my garden that summer and planted lots more parsley.

Among my new designs this Spring are two butterflies -- a tiger swallowtail and a monarch. I discovered the swallowtail at our local botanical garden as it sailed between the blue salvia and Mexican sunflowers. The monarch butterfly loved sunning itself on the asters by my front path. I am wiser now, and when I saw my butterfly weed looking half-eaten during the summer, I searched the plant until I found a monarch caterpillar happily munching and watched over the next days as it formed its chrysalis. I like to think that the monarch in the painting was the caterpillar who spent its summer on my butterfly weed.

Fine Art Banners’ Debut

Thu, 1 Oct 2009 22:54:10 -0400

When I created my poppy banner to hang in front of my booth at the Winterthur Garden Fair, I never expected that customers would want to buy part of my booth. Folks kept asking if the banner was for sale. It wasn’t for sale that weekend, but it is now!

We have created a line of fine art banners. Check them out at our online store. What’s great about these flowers is that they are always in bloom, and you will never need to water, weed, or deadhead! We’d love to see where you hang your garden banner.
Send us a picture.