We brought our purchases back home and headed out to the Friends of the Forbes Library in Northampton. The day stayed nice but changeable - brilliant sun and blue sky, clouding over, sun again and a nice breeze all day. Lots of lovely old homes where we parked and this was my particular favorite and if it was Chris's photo, the wires wouldn't be there. :)
Once parked, we walked to all but two of the 7 gardens so we got some nice exercise. I'm just going to post what pictures I have because what can you say about plants especially when you don't know their names?! But the gardens were lovely - each in their own way and the last one we visited (which was the first one on the list) was truly beautiful - very much how you think a garden in a garden tour will be. I'll post the "scenes" first and then close-ups of some of the plants.
I think the occupants of the little playhouse below must have moved when the new tree house appeared on the scene. But it still serves as a delightful little surprise tucked back in the trees.
All the gardens were very lush - the foliage plants were all amazingly big and full. Most of the gardens were predominantly shade gardens so lots of greenery and variegated foliage.
The next two are of what I think my sister said was a mountain laurel bush. The first shows a profusion of tiny pink buds and the second shows a spray of the fully opened flowers.
So that was our day. We stopped at some point in our travels for lunch at a little diner we tried for the first time on my last visit and decided it was a favorite spot for hot dogs (which we both love) and it was good and very diner-ish again. And then for a light dinner, we had a fresh baguette with three different cheeses and a delicious salad that Virginia made - her salads are always really tasty and interesting. This one had, along with the various greens, little bits of strawberries and coarsely chopped pistachio nuts and she said the dressing had olive oil with a smidge of sesame oil, white wine vinegar, fig jam (which she uses a lot in her cooking and dressings), a little apricot jam, pepper, and I think maybe she said a bit of mustard. She can correct all this in her comment if I'm seriously mistaken. Anyway, whatever was in it, it was delicious!
2 comments:
Looks like it was a great day for garden tours, despite the threat of rain. And that dressing does sound mighty tasty... hard to remember that there are still homemade dressings ;)
Gosh, that salad sounds good -- wish I'd ever remember to write down what I come up with but now you have so I'll try it again. Sure was a fun, nice visit but I never thought to look for your report until today when I came to look at the Sophia report.
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