Gardeners know winter really does end, and spring color always returns. Pansies, daffodils, and forsythia commonly herald the vernal transition, but still other blooms also contribute to a stunning early-season display. Here’s how three New England gardens host diverse plantings that strut their stuff in April and May.Get Our FREE Yankee Best New England Vacations […]
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Dorothy Eisner (1906-1984) was a thoroughly modernist painter who worked her way through most of the artistic trends of the 20th century from the Ashcan School and Social Realism to Abstract Expressionism. Her mature work, however, took the form of a rather Matisse-like application of painterly expressionism, very loose, free, and colorful, to paintings of […]
Is winter the right time to prune my apple trees and blueberry bushes? — R.R., Jackson, NJ Most deciduous trees benefit from pruning while they’re dormant, so winter is a fine time to prune your fruit trees and shrubs, including apple, pear, cherry, blueberry, and currant. Some gardeners save the long, thin “water shoot” prunings […]
Facts About Evergreen Trees
Fresh Christmas trees are like sponges: Their moisture alone weighs more than the tree itself does when dry. After Christmas, you can recycle your tree as mulch for your gardens and trails, cover habitat for fish, a barrier to reduce soil erosion, or a habitat for birds and other wildlife. Farmed Christmas trees cover about […]
Fantasy and Fetish on Campus
There is a strain of contemporary art that has to do with investigations of the artistic imagination as applied to social history and natural history. Perhaps the best known example of the former is Matthew Barney, who creates his own hallucinatory world out of bits and pieces of social fabric. The best known of the […]
Chihuly at RISD
On September 27, Rhode Island School of Design celebrates the grand opening of its new $34 million Chace Center with a day of performances, music, and special exhibitions. The Chace Center, named in honor of Happy and Malcolm Chace by RISD trustee Jane Chace Carroll and her siblings, Malcom G. Chace and Eliot Chace, is […]
Harvest Time at the Community Gardens
By Janice Stillman Editor, The Old Farmer’s Almanac I love autumn in the Monadnock region because it’s harvest time at the Community Gardens in Peterborough. It’s not commercial, but we welcome visitors. Several months of weeding, feeding, mulching, and sharing advice and ideas wind both up and down, as I hustle to pick and put […]
Do you believe in ghosts? Ghost hunters say two of the most active haunted places in New England are Houghton Mansion in North Adams, Massachusetts, and Carousel Gardens Restaurant in Seymour, Connecticut. Sample these scary stories from Ghost Hunters of New England by Alan Brown. Read on, if you dare… Houghton Mansion 172 Church St. North […]
If you happen to be anywhere near Lake Champlain between now and October 26, and you like your art light, upbeat and life-affirming, you should definitely plan to visit the Shelburne Museum in Shelburne, Vermont, seven miles south of Burlington on Route 7. The top two attractions of the Shelburne’s 10 summer shows are “Mary […]
Portsmouth, RI: The Tin Can Man
Yankee classic from January/February 2001 In a small, white house on a side street off a side street in the seaside town of Portsmouth, Rhode Island, there lives a village so lightweight a child could pick it up and carry it away, but strong enough to lift the weight of the world off the shoulders […]
Wethersfield, CT, and Onions
Yankee classic from August 1993 Plan a weekend visit to Wethersfield today. In those days, you could smell Wethersfield before you could see it. Outsiders dubbed the Connecticut village “Oniontown,” with a crosshatch of affection and derision, for this was home of the world-famous Wethersfield red onion, and its pungent scent stung the air. Wethersfield […]
“For the last 19 years,” says June LaCombe, Maine’s one-woman outdoor sculpture campaign, “I have been trying to get sculpture out of the white box of the gallery and back into people’s lives where it belongs.” June LaCombe is not just an art dealer; she is an art believer. She curates exhibitions of outdoor sculpture […]