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The dahlias are coming in fast and furious in the late-season race against first frost. Jen filled her trug with beautiful flowers to bring back to New York.

Summer may be ending, but the dahlias are plentiful.

A hummingbird in the secret garden wonders if the dahlias will ever bloom. Of course they do bloom, but only at the end of the summer. We returned for Labor Day weekend from dropping off Sarah in France. We had fine weather here, with a briief visit from Jen’s parents. While we were gone, our […]

Jen has been hard at work in the Secret Garden, which is currently awash in peonies. She has been planting some of her vast collection of dahlia tubers, which requires extensive excavation of rocks and roots. We look forward beautiful dahlias later in the summer. The roses also seem to be doing well.

It would have been more topical on this Memorial Day to post a picture of the poppies blooming outside the mud room door, but here instead are the peonies in the front yard, all coming in at once. Sadly, the Memorial Day parade was canceled due to inclement weather — which turned out to be, […]

Once again George Cole has met one of our hitherto undetected needs in the form of this late 19th century Tiffany & Co. sardine fork. We are slowly building our collection of obscure silver. Jen has been hard at work digging up the dahlias so they can survive the winter in our basement. The dahlia […]

Jen has created a beautiful and orderly home for the peonies in her secret garden using only mulch, a few rocks, and several hours of backbreaking labor under punishing heat and humidity. She used the same formula to create this garden in front of the cottage. On Friday, we returned from drinks at Chris Rosekrans’s […]

It’s high season for peonies [ed. note: or at least it was before this post spent two weeks in the draft folder]. Here’s a Bowl of Plenty blooming in Jen’s secret garden.

Sarah’s horse for the summer, Sully (formally known as Lanchello), a Dutch gelding, arrived at Southlands Friday morning after an overnight drive from Georgia. By Saturday, Sully had acclimated enough to be ridden. He seems like a fine fellow. In unrelated news, Jen’s secret garden has awakened for spring, with blooms including this fancy Blue […]

These handsome tulips are blooming in front of the cottage. We didn’t plant these, and we don’t always get to see them before they are munched by the deer.