The Gardens of Thornclaw Manor

06/04/2024

01/05/2024

Trader Joe’s amaryllis for the win. This gorgeous creature has NINE flowers/buds.

05/10/2022

This Friday!!!

The Cooperative Extension’s Plant Sale is one of my favorite events of the year!

Don’t forget to bring a soil sample for free pH testing.

09/28/2021

I jumped onto TikTok!

How to get rid of moth eggs

08/05/2021

August is for HOT color in the gardens. The heliopsis is stealing the show this year!

05/13/2021

TWO Fridays worth of Plant Sale! 5/14 & 5/21 at the Ithaca Farmers Market at Steamboat Landing.

2-3pm - Seniors and Immunocompromised
3-7pm - General Public

Look for the Master Gardener Volunteer booth at the Northeast End of the Pavillion. See you there!

04/08/2021

This week In the he garden: the crocus have all faded with no losses to deer(!). Chionodoxia (glory of the snow) naturalizing beautifully but I need to be more thoughtful - they still have some good blooms left but are being overtaken by the allium foliage - next year I’ll have a better display if I combine allium and crocus. Peas are in. Much mulching of the front beds. Along the south walkway more daffs and signs of life from the asparagus, achillea (yarrow), and anemone I transplanted there last fall. Hyacinths from many years ago are starting to bloom, but not very robust, smells nice, tho.

04/05/2021

March 12th - first buds of the year.

04/05/2021

Late February- my experimental pizza box garden. This is an experimental process I’m going through to test a way to make growing native perennials easy for more people. It’s combining the some of the ideas of sheet mulching and winter sowing to test if this will make stratification easier, will eliminate competition, and will be ultimately less fussy than traditional seed starting.

The pizza box is filled with growing medium, the top of the box poked thoroughly, native perennial seed inside. Soaked. Piled with snow.
Three weeks later when the snow is all gone: Cardboard laid all around for suppressing weeds to eliminate competition. The whole area covered with a thick layer of wood chips to make it the same level as the top of the pizza box, plus a little more to keep the pizza box lightly covered in order to retain moisture.
I’ll check back in mid/late-April to see if there is any sprouting.

04/05/2021

Also on March 22nd - two areas cardboarded and chipped.

04/05/2021

March 22nd - species crocus and the winter aconite still blooming.