Historic Places in South Jersey

Historic Places in South Jersey - Places to Go and Things to Do

A discussion of things to do and places to go, with the purpose
of sharing, and encouraging exploration of South Jersey.

Monday, April 22, 2013

Happy Earth Day 2013

Today, to celebrate Earth Day, my sister and I worked in my garden.  Over the past 25 years, I have planted nearly 250 shrubs and trees, but for the past 5 to 10 years, I did almost no gardening at all, however some of my trees have grown enormous! 
My sister, Susan is a Landscape Designer and recently did a wonderful presentation at the Mickleton Library on Kings Hwy., which, by the way, is in the process of being closed by the municipality.  My sister had always made good use of the library and was happy to give back by doing the excellent presentation.  She will miss the Library when it is gone.
The most interesting part of her presentation, to me, was where she had brought a dozen or so potted shrubs which formed a lovely backdrop.  She would pull two forward and we could observe that they looked identical, and even though they were in the same family, one might grow 30 feet tall and the other 3 feet tall, which makes a great deal of difference if you are planting in front of your bay window! 
In fact, I had planted a lovely little tree next to my outdoor shed, some years back when I still had Christmas trees with root balls.  I couldn't bring myself to kill a live tree for a celebration and then put out its dead, dry remnants on the day after Christmas, so I bought trees with roots and planted them.  That caused a problem on exceptionally cold winters when the ground froze, but we just decorated the tree with items for whatever holiday came up until the ground thawed out again.  One of those trees was a Norwegian Spruce.  It is huge and I can't imagine how tall it will become!
Anyhow, we came close to meeting our goal for the gardening of the day, but not quite.  We did the mulching of the beds, but didn't get to plant the rest of the Lily of the Valley pips that I had bought from amazon.com.
It came to me that I wanted them when I smelled their fragrance outside the Gloucester County Historical Society Library every spring.  They had quite a nice bed of them in the parking lot.  I'm a volunteer there.
Master Gardeners from Whitall House generously gave me pots of them from their own gardens and they are coming up, but I wanted MORE.  I'll plant the pips tomorrow.
I hope you were outside on this splendid day which couldn't have been a better day to remind us of how wonderful our planet is.
On June 5th, I'll be taking a trip to Bartram's Gardens and Chanticleer with two friends.  I'll let you know how that goes.
I haven't visited that many gardens in the past, (Longwood, from time to time, of course) but I go regularly to visit various trees, such as the Salem Oak.  Anyhow I did get to see the Doris Duke Gardens (North Central NJ) before they closed and, as you recall, I visited all the State Parks in SJ last year.  Some years back, I had ventured further north some years ago and also visited The Great Swamp.  This would be a good time of year to go there, while the waters are flowing and the mosquitoes aren't quite out yet.  This is a wonderful time of the year to be in any park!
This week I'll be taking a walking tour of historic Woodbury.  More on that after Friday, April 26. 
Nothing makes me happier than to be outdoors walking in a park or woods.  I especially with my canine pal, Trixie Belden.  I hope you got outside today too!

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