Around the Farm: Lancaster County

Spooky Nook Farm

After flying home from Vermont last week, I left the next day for Lancaster County. Prudy, Eileen, Judy and I were invited to a 50th anniversary party for our friends Earl and Evie Landis, who own the farm where we have been staying twice a year (at least) for the past 24 years. We have watched their children grow up and have the grandchildren and we like to feel like we are part of the family, and they sure make us feel that way. Their children had a big party for them on Sunday and we were so happy  to be invited. Of course we made a weekend of it,  hitting our favorite markets, going to Chanticleer Gardens on Saturday, stopping at every little farm stand for local produce, baked goods, and jams and jellies, and then deciding on Sunday that we should start seeing all the covered bridges in Lancaster County.  There are about 29 covered bridges and we have seen a few over the years, but we thought we should make a point to see each and every one, drive across it,  walk across it,  and take a picture.  After driving on winding roads and into the middle of nowheresville, and with all of us pretty carsick, we saw three.  We decided that’s a good start and will continue where we left off the next time we're in PA. 

Landis Farm

Landis Farm

Landis Farm Corn

Landis Farm

Landis Farm apple tree

Landis Farm

Lancaster County views (site of the anniversary party)

We had a great time at the anniversary party on Sunday,  all of Earl and Evie's children and grandchildren were there,  and we met more of the extended family. We especially enjoyed meeting Earl's sisters, and talked at length with one sister, Anna Mae, about the flowers that she and her husband grow and sell at the Hanover Market. When they realized we were gardeners, they invited us to stop by their farm the next day on our way home and pick flowers.  What a treat that was! They have more than 100 acres, and farm corn (I think everyone grows corn in PA), and other vegetables, but the real attraction was their acres of zinnias, gladiolas,  sunflowers, strawflowers, gomphrena, celosia, and more. They just gave us pruners and buckets and told us to pick away. It was heaven for us flower lovers. Our only restriction was that we had just the one car, so before long our car was jammed with buckets and buckets of flowers. It was pretty funny, but somehow our cars always look like that when we leave Lancaster County.

Flower Farm zinnias

Picking flowers

Picking Flowers

Roadside stand at the farm

And here are a few shots of the flowers we picked once I got home. So fun to have a flower-filled house!

Gladiolas

Gladiolas

Mixed flowers

Garden Visits: Vermont

Phlox Fest at Perennial Pleasures

While in Vermont last week, JoAnn and I visited several nurseries and gardens, including Perennial Pleasures, in East Hardwick, Vt., which grows over 900 varieties of flowers, herbs, and shrubs, and specializes in heirloom plants. We were there during their annual Phlox Fest,  two weeks in the summer when most of their 137 varieties of phlox are blooming, a good time to see and smell all the many colors, sizes, and fragrances of phlox. We took an hour long tour of the garden, which the owner Rachel began more than 30 years ago behind her family home.  The gardens are the main attraction, but there are also plants and herbs for sale, a gift shop, and an outdoor tea room. They do a big mail order business too.

Phlox Collection

Old fashioned hosta

Delphinium

Delphinium

Cimicifuga

Tea in the garden

Another day we went to JoAnn's favorite nursery, Cady's Falls, in Morrisville, Vt. I have been to a lot of nurseries, but this was seriously one of the best. The gardens are beautiful, filled with unusual plants and garden art. Everywhere you turned it seemed there was something more interesting to look at--plants, sculpture, ponds, conifers, containers, trees. These are my favorite kind of nurseries, which are really gardens that happen to sell plants too.  This nursery specializes in weeping conifers, and I have never seen so many unusual specimens of trees and shrubs. The nursery itself has beautiful herbaceous and woody plants, and I saw my first Itoh peonies. I kept trying to figure out if I could stuff any plants in my carryon bag...it's not easy to visit such a quality nursery and leave empty handed. But I left with  lots of ideas and inspiration.  And really, there's nothing more fun than to visit a beautiful nursery with a gardening pal.

Great containers

Shady gardens around the house

Bog gardens

Girl under tree

Art everywhere

Loved this pile of stones planted with sedums and moss

Hostas

Loved these troughs, but boy were they heavy

A Week in Vermont

Last week I was in Stowe, Vermont, visiting my friend JoAnn, who I have known forever. Our parents were friends before we were even born and so I have known her for my whole life, and we have lots of memories together (you know, all those goofy middle school and high school escapades). I decided to fly up to Burlington and spend several days with her and get to see the Vermont that she loves so much. She has a beautiful house up on a mountain in Stowe, with absolutely gorgeous views. I can't imagine waking up every day to these views, but I sure enjoyed it while I was there. We spent a lot of time just sitting on her deck,  looking out at the mountains,  and talking.

She is a gardener too, so we spent a lot of time walking around her gardens and admiring the plants and shrubs and trees. She has several different gardens around the property, a big perennial garden in back with nepeta, coneflowers, bee balm, baptisia, hydrangeas, daylilies,  alliums,  and lots of conifers mixed in. And I am seriously in love with all that Vermont stonework.

The weather was absolutely perfect. And that sky...

JoAnn grows blueberries too, so of course we had fresh blueberries every morning on our oatmeal.

I loved these gardens along the driveway, filled with mosses, sedums, and other rock garden plants.

And the gardens in front of the house are masses of ferns, astilbes, hostas, anemones, and cimicifuga, a sea of calming greens and whites.

I was totally entranced with this little brook that meanders through her back yard and down the mountain.

There are so many ponds in Vermont! This pond is down the road from the house and there is a bigger pond nearby where they can swim.

We had such a good time, visiting JoAnn's favorite nurseries and gardens (more to come about that), going to a Phlox Festival, eating delicious food, taking walks, doing a little shopping in Stowe, enjoying the views from the Trapp Family Lodge, and of course talking and talking and laughing. So much fun to spend time with my dear friend.

View from the Trapp Family Lodge