This weekend my Dad turned 95 age old . Here he is , in a photo from 1929 at thier club , up on Packachoag Hill , behind our theatre . This is the location where Robert Goddard ( Of Goddard Space Center renown ) , fired his first fuel - powered rocket , that pit the beginning of the space eld . Or something like that….anyway , my dad and many of his brothers are in the famous photo , which was assume at this theater of operations , which now is a golf course of action , on the hill behind our home . A monument stands where Goddard fire the rocket , ( commend the flick October Skies ? ) ( Different rocketeer , but same write up ) . My dad tells me the the rocket engine landed on Mr.s Hooks barn , and burn down it down , which I hear , almost end the sunrise of the blank space old age .
Dad is still healthy , in fact , amazingly so….picking and eating all of those wild blueberries which he hold open in the freezer in the cellar and eats ever day , does the trick….he lives with us , in this same home that he was raised in , along with his seven brothers , Ted , Joe John , Frank , Vincent and Robert ( Bobby)m the youngest of the Mattus kinship group who change by reversal 8o this year , and who hail up to chit-chat the house and garden that he was born in , and to surprise , his older brother,(my Dad ) Vitty . All of the rest are gone now , but all of thier nipper and grandchild and great grandchildren amount to celebrate at Dad ’s big 95 fete . Uncle Bob , now 80 , ( young kid here on the left , showing our house as it did in the 1930 ’s before the addition of the studio apartment .
Dad is still hefty , he has a girlfriend friend , ( she ’s 80 ) and goes ballroom trip the light fantastic every weekend . Being so full of life , he has a large lot of friends , so this weekend we hosted a party . Bobby and Vitty are the last of the seven buddy alert , yet all of their offsring and their offsring , so on and so on , come to the party Saturday night . With mess of vino , lots of old Photographs and stack of memories deal amongst the many relatives , we all became a bit sentimental but also joyful , after all , it is often so easy to only make time to be get together at less upbeat outcome during these late phases of our short life-time . My Uncle Frank Mattus , with his Gardening Business Truck in 1924 on our place . He won an awarding at the New England Spring Flower Show .
Our home when it was first constructed in 1918 , point out that there are no trees . Dad tells me that they had no electricity or consort water until two years by and by , because the urban center had not execute the pipes yet . persona … .. 7 boys , a woods stove , and a washing basin with no run water , just a well and no electrical energy … … .. Oh that remind me .. We ladder our of Fresh Linen scented Tide this weeked , but I drive to Target and grease one’s palms some , along with some Febreze and Paper towels … fourth dimension sure has changed . And I squall at Dad for keeping a Pee jar in his room ! ( shhh ) .
Our home circa 1945 , the tree are getting taller .
In many of the photos , I was reminded of the strong horticulture inheritance which exist in my family . Last dark , we realized that all of us garden like our Dads did , even my cousin Penny from Florida was notice on my Uncle Bobs garden , and his organic outlook towards goodly living . SInce I was raised in the same house and garden that all seven of my Uncles had been , and the same star sign that my Grandfather had built in 1918 , I feel a bass connective to the garden , a rarified thing in any American garden , for each of the trees and shrub , or tall spruces that many of you comment on , we ’re planted by these seven during the early 20th Century . These old noble Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree , were already tall by 1959 when I was born , and today are as tall as any tree in an Olmsted parking area in New England . Our stowage , in our root cellar where my parent stored all of the canned good and many squeeze smorgasbord they farm for the winter . The elbow room also held barrels of Malus pumila , and had a zinc pipe that bring in the frigid winter air from the outside along with a thick , cork door . The elbow room is still there , and we still use it for household made conserves , for forcing bulbs and for forcing trays of winter K like Belgian Endive . Before computer memory carried it , we grew it ourselves , not recognise it was so voguish .
A vase of Nerine undulata and some fragrant Tulbaghia fragrans on my desk as I type this .
Joy . Spring is near . I can find it , I can smell it , and I can even learn it . Finally , wintertime icy grip has yield , just a bit , enough for the two inch sheet of ice that coats our stone walks and campaign , to at least , reach a temperature where now a small bit of sand , will really hold fast to it . Today , here in New England , where temperature have remained far below zero stage F. since Christmas , it accomplish a nuts 48 Deg f. I saw two robins , pick up the redbird , and even sense spring , although , it was indoors , and rather a surprise … .I beak some Nerine undulata and place it in a bottle in my office , along with a shank of a species Clivia C. caulescens , and a stem from a rather pitiful looking pot of Tulbaghia fragrans . The Tulbaghia fragrans always bloom for me , during January and February , but only after the leave-taking moulder forth a bit , and the entire pot becomes quite , well , stagnant expect . Just as the foliage begin to re - emerge , the flower spike come out , and the white umbels flower . In the hot greenhouse of a cheery February day , they have a slight fragrance , but tonight , the stem that I bring into the mansion is scenting the entire room . It is fabulously unassailable and rich , and makes keeping this passably under apprehended member of the Tulbagia clan , easier . I know in California , many bulb growers snub their nose at the bulb , as being a less full cousin to the more skunky , yet lilac-colored , Tulbagia violacea , the common society ail . But I am quick to rally for it ’s more fragrant but untempting first cousin , for it ’s difficult to beat such fragrance in wintertime . Another sign of spring , the first vegetable seeds- storage onions , are inseminate in the glasshouse .
The onion seedling will be stong enough to engraft out by the heart of April . Seed grown onion are much better for achieving award winning size of it that by growing lightbulb from sets . Remember , onions are bulbs .
Also , Parsley was planted , along with some Violas , and Pansys . These need lighting to germinate , so I just covered them slightly with all right Vermiculite , and are keeping them in the house at 68 degrees F until they sprout . The Allium cepa seminal fluid was cover , and remains in the greenhouse , to see a more diurnal temperature chain of mountains of cold nights , and warm days . The greenhouse was built over my grandfather veg garden , and I enquire what he would be thinking if he live that his two sons at 80 and 95 , were able to pick lemons and camellias that are now grow in the same soil ?
So … life goes on … .. and the once cold days of 2009 are getting long … every 24-hour interval , the Sunday is setting later , we can experience it ! I love to watch the sun hit the nursery with winter on the outside , and summer on the inside . WInter light , is so nice .
A Trough with an Ikea Ice Shield – fancy .
Over the vacation open frame from piece of work , Joe and I re - designed the abode office , and we had some plate - glass computer table that had courteous , modern chrome rods attached to them to organise glass shelf behind the computer . They were too nice to confuse away , but Joe had an idea , and he was correct … they correspond dead over the trough , which now countenance me to keep our icy , wet snow off of some of out more wanted alpines , yet allows them to persist in a deeply glacial condition , as if they are cryptic in a raft crevice . We shall see soon if this did any good . Many alpines prefer C. P. Snow , but not wet snow and frappe . Remember , in the alps , the Charles Percy Snow is deep and dry , then it melts , and the alpine flowers flower . Here in New England , the alpine plants that we keep in Harlan F. Stone trough , can get wet snowfall , internal-combustion engine , warming , red-hot sun , more cockeyed Baron Snow of Leicester , below zero temperatures , then 70 deg . F temps in Jan , then ice , then … …… since we ’ve had a overnice snowy and cold wintertime , they credibly would have survived just fine , and I have been shovel the walk and burying them even deep in the protective coke . I just covered a few of our more grumpy plant , to see if keeping them both dry and fozen , might be better . Go go go Eritrichium ! Spring is not far off ! perhaps I will even have Soldanella this class ( no cover in anything but deep Baron Snow of Leicester , they are ) .
One last matter _ ( I know , I ’m all over the place!) … I brought this Clivia seedling into the house , since we brought in many of the larger flower industrial plant for the company , and once in the planetary house , I was impressed with how nice its form and colour is . These are offspring that we bring back from Mr. Nakamura ’s farm in Japan in 2001 , and many are start up to bloom . None are named , and they are all one of a kind , but this one is a keeper . It ’s blossoms seem double , although I think they are just shorter than many of our other Cyrtanthiflora group Clivia , and the semblance is of such a vibrant vermillion , that it is hard to accurately enchant it on the camera . Still , I wanted to deal it , since the umbels are so dense , that the over - all gist is more ‘ carnation’-like that Clivia ! .
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