WEATHER IN VERMONT Monday morning on the mountain above Peacham Pond. Light snow has been falling for a couple hours, 2" of new snow on the ground, 1-2 mph wind and 20°. Morning is the time I check with the National Weather Service to see what to expect for the next couple days. A St. Albans, Vermont weatherman, Matt Sutkoski (https://matttsweatherrapport.blogspot.com) uses this service too. He just posted a resource list from that NWS that posts on Twitter/X. It has resources that might be useful to you if you have an interest in weather regardless of where you live. I can't explain why but ..read more

  Our Soils, Our Gardens February 21, 2024 I just wrote this summary and believe it might be of interest to gardeners and gardening groups.  I am working on a number of soil issues at Vermont Flower Farm and I will share what I learn along the way. I'll post this and follow up information on The Vermont Gardener blog (https://thevermontgardener.blogspot.com/) as well as my two Facebook pages, George Africa (https://www.facebook.com/george.africa)    and also Vermont Flower Farm and Gardens (https://www.facebook.com/Vermont-Flower-Farm-Gardens-198640921659) I am always g ..read more

Daylily  Ruby Throat  THE COLOR RED Morning on the mountain. Working in the woods makes me sleep well and until the snow begins and gets deep, that's where Alex and I will be part of every day. It's 25.3° right now, windless, quiet. I just looked at the storms coming east over the next couple weeks but there's still enough debate that I am not getting excited. We need a foot of snow to fill in the ruts in the roads. They are all a mess. Last week our town guys spread three loads of stay mat/crushed granite down our road and then graded it but it was raining so everything turned ..read more

  GARDENING UNDER WATER If you have been watching the news you might well have seen what has happened in your favorite Vermont during the past couple weeks. The rain turned on and never turned off and as a result the worst flooding since the 1920's has devasted many places in Vermont. We have been through the 2011 floods--two in May of that year that brought +10 feet of water over our propagation fields, display lilacs and hydrangeas, and over our entire hosta display garden. Then in August of the same year, Tropical Storm Irene did it to us all over again. That was nothing like what w ..read more

  PEONIES I just finished updating the Peony page on our website https://vermontflowerfarm.com. Peonies are available for sale at the farm as potted plants in 12-quart peony pots. Each root is planted at the correct level so you can take pots home and replant them at the same depth they  are currently growing. Planting depth is very important to your success so please be sure never to plant the roots deeper than 1.5" to 2" deep. Plant deeper and the peony will live well but as for blooms--it probably will not happen. Peonies are only available at the farm--no mail order is offered ..read more

 TICKS April 2, 2023. 7:30 AM. 24.4° The wind is swirling snowflakes in big circles as small birds such as nuthatches and chickadees have trouble landing at the feeders. The temperature is dropping because of the wind but also in front of another weather pattern that made us smile yesterday with 62° in the afternoon but frown now. Spring is fickle and what we want is not what we always see. There is +2 feet of snow here on the mountain above Peacham Pond but a walk in the woods requires snowshoes as the snow depth exceeds 3 feet. It will be a while before the snow is gone but in the mea ..read more

SPRING IS GETTING CLOSER   Just outside my home office window, I maintain two bird birders and several suet cages for winter entertainment while I am answering email and orders from the Vermont Flower Farm. Each morning either my son Alex or I fill the feeders and enjoy the birds arriving for breakfast. But this time of year, we are often surprised by other visitors that want breakfast too. Three days ago, when the field was clear, white with snow, and untouched, a raccoon began across and then was joined by another. They cleared the field and entered our machine shed and showed no s ..read more

 Dividing Daylilies Saturday afternoon, January 14 at 2 PM. I am using up a little time online while waiting for the San Francisco 49ers playoff game at 4:30. Just noticed that there's no reason for me to prepare an instructional video on dividing daylilies when there are already a number of them on YouTube. Here's a video that Stuart Kendig prepared. Scroll back and you will see his name mentioned in a couple posts I just made. His daylily website featuring plants from his gardens in York, Pennsylvania is http://kendigdaylilies.com/ Here's the You Tube video. Dividing daylili ..read more

  Quite a day here on the mountain above Peacham Pond where we live. It started out cold but by 9 AM the light snow had changed to rain and you could actually see last night's 4 inches of fluffy snow shrink. I worked online for a couple more hours trying to figure out what happened to my personal George Africa Facebook page as well as our FB business page, Vermont Flower Farm and Gardens. Facebook, like many of the big boys, wants nothing to do with you after you get up and running unless you spend money. I have spent several years putting together 4-5000 friends but since January 4th, c ..read more

  January White January 12, 2023. 7:30 PM. I couldn't wait any longer and I had to open the back door to see whether the weather was changing or not. Two days ago, it was below zero, this morning it started out at 16°, and now as I sit here online, it's an even 30°, up 2 degrees in an hour. Although snowflakes have been falling much of the day, the accumulation was negligible, and rain is predicted in the next hour. Climate change is upon us despite what some folks think. Ask anyone who loves to ski, snowboard or snowmobile and you will hear groans as snow hardly exists in the lowlands a ..read more