Do it now

Perennials: Continue planting bulbs as long as weather permits. Pick the last roses of the season. Hill up soil at the base of the plant so that it covers the rose graft area to prevent winter kill.

Flowers: Replace flowering plants in window boxes and containers with evergreen branches and berries. The containers should be frost proof. Read more of this entry »

Dec. 5
Congers: Rockland Audubon Monthly Program. Speaker: Manna Jo Greene. Topic: Diminishing fish populations, development along the river and its impact on wildlife and ecology. Free. 8 p.m. Rockland Country Day School, 34 Kings Highway. 845-639-9216.

Dec. 9
White Plains: Greater Westchester Orchid Society Meeting. $25 membership. 7 p.m. Ethical Culture Society of Westchester, 7 Saxon Woods Road. 973-420-4966.

Once again, the boys in the Greenhouse Program at Children’s Village in Dobbs Ferry are offering hand-decorated wreaths and poinsettias for sale. Orders are due by Nov. 28 and the wreaths should be ready by Dec. 10.

Read more of this entry »

I find this to be a particularly good time to pull garlic mustard, which is wildly invasive in the Hudson Valley.

It’s very easy to see now, still bright green against the brown leaves. It also comes up fairly easily, after all the rain we’ve had.

Just because it’s November, you don’t have to stop planting things in your garden. It’s a great time to plant shrubs and trees.

Here’s a note about what’s good about fall planting I got a few weeks ago from Anne Megaro, a great gardener who lives in New Rochelle and works for Groundwork Yonkers. Look for Anne’s seed-starting workshops at the Wildcliff Greenhouse in NR in the spring. She often teaches them with Barbara Fischer, the horticultural therapist at Children’s Village in Dobbs Ferry (and oops, I just realized I forgot to post a link to my article earlier this week on the holiday wreath/pointsettia sale there — will do today). Here’s Anne:

“We have been fall planting for years now with no ill effects. We’ve planted 25 flower carpet roses as late as early December when the top 1” of soil was frozen, and they came through unscathed (albeit in a non-windy site). Read more of this entry »

If you’ve got a few extra million dollars that’s not tied up in the stock market, I would suggest plunking down a sizable deposit on Brooke Astor’s house in Briarcliff Manor. It’s gorgeous.

Here’s the back of the stone-clad house, facing out to the Hudson.

(photos from Sotheby’s)

I got an hour-plus tour of the house and grounds on Monday morning with David Turner of Sotheby’s International Realty for an article I’m writing about the sale of the 64-acre property known as Holly Hill. Here’s a link, with lots more photos of the house and grounds, to my blog post from last Friday.

My story will be running in the paper this weekend on the cover of the Real Estate section. It should appear on lohud.com on Saturday morning. If you can’t find it under real estate, click on Life&Style and it should come up. Or just search for “Astor” or “Bill Cary.”

I’m off to a long weekend in New Orleans and may not be able to post a link on Saturday.

For the story, I talked to Meryl Gordon, the author of the just-published “Mrs. Astor Regrets: The Hidden Betrayals of a Family Beyond Reproach” (Houghton Mifflin, $28).

Meryl is a former Gannett reporter and could not have been nicer. She’s coming to the Ossining Public Library on Dec. 17 to talk about her book with Bob Minzesheimer (USA Today book reviewer and Scarborough resident) and sign copies. (Details in a box with my article on Saturday.)

The NY Post had an excerpt from the book on Sunday. Did you see? Juicy stuff. Here’s a link.

Meanwhile, I can’t wait for the plane ride and a few hours with her book.

Gardening-wise, it’s the wrong time of year to see what was growing on the Astor estate. I hear she has magnificent cutting gardens, to keep the house stocked with fresh flowers. And David said the estate still has two gardeners on staff.

Here’s the four-bedroom Gardener’s Cottage, a sweet little 1,700-square-foot house. Loved the paisley wallpaper in the upstairs bathroom, circa 1971.

He pointed out a large grove of euonymus shrubs (Flame Bush or Burning Bush) between the house and the river. (I know, I know—an invasive no-no these days.)

And she’s got spectacular hedgerows of boxwood and of course hollies. And I hear the peonies are sublime. Wonderful mature oaks and maples and other trees near the house and elsewhere.

Sadly, the once-flourishing greenhouse was empty.

Even though the property is fenced, the fencing is not tall enough to keep deer out. David said he saw a five-point buck last weekend. And lots of wild turkeys.

Here’s the heated five-bay Carriage House, with a chauffeur’s apartment on the second floor.

My Chickens in Suburbia story ran on Page One today. Here’s a link.

Note the two sidebars off to the right, down a ways on the screen — “Starting a Coop of Your Own” and “Teen Takes Prizes for Fowl Work.” Just click on the links and they should come right up.

There’s a video, too.

And here’s a link to an earlier blog post.

A new film series is starting at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, with a free showing of “March of the Penguins” on Friday, Nov. 21.

It’s always good to be reminded that the NY Botanical Garden is about so much more than pretty plants and flowers. Here’s a press release from George Shakespear:

“Seven New Curators Join Scientific Research Faculty at
The New York Botanical Garden

“Seven new curators have joined the science faculty at The New York Botanical Garden in 16 months. Four joined this fall, and a fifth will arrive shortly. They join two other recent hires in late 2007. The additions are part of a strategic drive to refresh and deepen the strength of the Botanical Garden’s science programs. The New York Botanical Garden is already among the top three freestanding botanical gardens in the world where plant research is conducted. Read more of this entry »

Economist.com has an article titled “The Greening of Gardening” that explores how our gardens of the future are likely to be more in tune with the environment, especially because of global warming.

Here’s the beginning:

“Horticulture will change as the climate does

“GARDENS are more than just yard decorations for the green-thumbed: they also express a worldview. As concern over climate change grows, environmentally sensitive gardens are becoming more popular. Many gardeners try to conserve water and avoid the use of pesticides, preferring instead biological controls, manual removal and companion planting, in which certain plants are grown next to each other to protect both from pests or diseases. Commendable as these measures are, they are only a beginning.”