In honor of tonight’s lighting of the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree, what better carol than this Nat King Cole classic tribute to winter’s greenery. After all, this is a gardening blog.
Nitty Gritty Dirt Man
Yule Tune: It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year (Andy Williams)
Some performers will forever be associated with Christmas, and Andy Williams is one such performer. Enjoy this brief clip from a Christmas show from long ago.
Yule Tune: Angels We Have Heard On High (Chanticleer)
In the previous post, “Caroling, Caroling Through The Month,” I mentioned the idea of posting a Christmas music video each day until Christmas arrives. After searching through the YouTube vaults, I think I’ve found an appropriate one to get the sounds of the season up and running.
This is Chanticleer singing “Angels We Have Heard On High.” A few years ago, Joe and I — along with our friends Cathey and Robert — were fortunate enough to see this all-male group perform their holiday concert at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.
While this video may not show them performing, it does come with its own fireplace — a nice touch as the WordPress snow gently falls.
Caroling, Caroling Through The Month
Now that Thanksgiving is over, I no longer have to feel guilty about listening to Christmas carols. I’m not referring to the holiday music played all day and all night by local radio stations. That’s a bit much — and I would rather be boiled in my own pudding, a stake of holly through my heart.
No, I like my own collection of Christmas music — music that I can listen to when I want and as often as I want — even if it’s in June or July. Sometimes, you just need some old fashioned, familiar merriment. Besides, it’s a great way to think cool thoughts during a heatwave.
While many aspects of the holiday season — like the coal-deserving behavior of many shoppers on Black Friday and the corporate leaders who opened their doors to do business on Thanksgiving, ala Scrooge & Marley — have left me feeling like a not-right-jolly-old-elf, Christmas carols remain at the top of my holiday list.
Wordless Wednesday (with words)
In light of the Thanksgiving holiday and recent 50 year anniversary,
I thought these words were appropriate.
Wishing all of you a Happy Thanksgiving.
Repost: That’s A Wrap!
Baby, it’s cold outside. And for Joe and me, the cold temperature is our cue that it’s time to wrap our windmill palm for the winter months. So while we’re outside, I’m offering my seasonal repost of what it is that we’re doing and why.
I may be the gardener of the house, but Joe also has his landscape loves. One of his greatest is palm trees. His absolute fave is Cocos nucifera, the coconut palm. If it were up to him, coconut palms would be growing everywhere. We often joke that he would be to coconut palms what Johnny Appleseed was to apples — only he would be called Joey Coconuts, which does sound a little — alright, a lot — like a character from “The Sopranos.”
Sadly, coconut palms will not grow in our Zone. Nor will most other palms found around the world. So what’s a palm lover to do? About 10 years ago, we purchased a windmill palm, Trachycarpus fortunei to be exact, from Stokes Tropicals. Originally grown in China, the windmill is one of the hardiest of palms, able to tolerate a fairly severe freeze and a light winter snow cover.
But this is Long Island, and winters are unpredictable. Sometimes mild, sometimes snowy and frozen — and after the year we’ve had, who knows which winter will come our way. Although the palm receives full sun, there are steps that we must take — or rather Joe must take, with my assistance — to ensure winter survival.
Bloomin’ Update 49: Color My World Brown
Lacecap Hydrangea.
“You spend an awful lot of time agonizing over leaves,” Joe, my partner, said to me the other day as we drove around the neighborhood. His statement was in response to my noticing that some homeowners had bagged their leaves in plastic bags while others had bagged them in recyclable brown paper bags, which the township now requires.
Bloomin’ Update 48: The Falling Leaves . . .
In the last post, I left the garden for a music-themed writing prompt from WordPress. This week, it’s back outside — or rather, it’s back to the photos that I originally had taken if I hadn’t come across that writing prompt. And it’s a good thing I snapped these photos when I did — because a week of wind later, where once there were leaf-laden trees, there now stands bare branches.
Return To Planet Claire
I know. I know. This is a gardening blog, but WordPress has issued a Daily Post Challenge , a writing prompt that spoke to me — or rather, that sang to me. The task was to pick a song — any song — and write about it.
My first impulse was to select “Autumn Leaves,” by Nat King Cole, and add a few leafy photos — and although I love the idea of being wrapped in the velvet of his voice, it almost seemed too obvious. Another time, perhaps, because this music post begs to be more personal.
For months now, Joe and I have been trying to simplify our lives, but there is one area of my own life that remains a hold out. It’s my vinyl record collection, which now sits — alphabetically, of course — in crates that are stacked in my closet. I’m having a very hard time parting with my records. I’ve been talking about it for about 10 years now.
My records, you see, are important to me. They are the records I’ve carried with me for decades, the records I used on countless mix tapes, the records I uploaded onto my computer and burned onto CDs, the records I now listen to on my iPod. Yes, these albums, 12” singles, and imports can tell a story of me better than any diary.
Bloomin’ Update 47: Last Call
Every garden should have hydrangeas for no-matter-the-season interest.
I admit I have a hard time letting go of summer.
Even with leaves changing and falling and blooms fading and browning, I’m still reluctant to clean the beds and put them to rest. Even the weather is having a difficult time falling into a seasonal rhythm. There are days that are windy and evenings that are slightly frosty, and then there are the times when it feels mild and balmy.
So, with camera in hand, it’s last call in the garden, one last chance for flowers to bask in the spotlight before a hard frost takes them away.
Nitty Gritty Dirt Man 