By Patti Spezaferro Wishing you beautiful moments and all the blessings a heart can know for 2021 and always. As we enter into this new year, I am reminded that it’s a time to celebrate and be thankful for the many wonderful things in my life: good health, a loving family, and my friends at […]

By Patti Spezaferro My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece. – Claude Monet Claude Monet, one of the founders of impressionistic art, always loved the outdoors, and wherever he lived, he planted flowers. So, it’s not surprising to read that it took Monet six years to find the perfect setting for his garden that possessed […]

By Patti Spezaferro “She never dressed down for her gardens.” She might be wearing a tweed suit and Ferragamo pumps, and if it were muddy, she kicked off the shoes on coming back into the house. – E.B. White The above quotation is from the famous author of the beloved children’s book, Charlotte’s Web, speaking […]

By Patti Spezaferro A garden is probably the most pure and spiritual of joys. A communion with nature and beauty in their most simple and fundamental forms. –Oscar de la Renta I always knew that Oscar de la Renta was known as one of the world’s leading fashion designers because of his elegant style of […]

By Patti Spezaferro “The most noteworthy thing about gardeners is that they are always optimistic, always enterprising, and never satisfied. They always look forward to doing something better than they have ever done before.” … Vita Sackville West Last year, I was lucky enough to travel to England with a wonderful group of garden enthusiasts. […]

By Patti Spezaferro “What is one to say about June, the time of perfect young summer,  the fulfillment of the promise of the earlier months,  and with as yet no sign to remind one  that its fresh young beauty will ever fade?”  ―Gertrude Jekyll Gertrude Jekyll, born in 1843, was an extraordinary British horticulturist, garden […]

“I can be changed by what happens to me, but I refuse to be defeated by it.” Maya Angelou I will not lie, the shelter-in-place order has been a real challenge for me. I love being out and about taking classes, volunteering, exercising with friends. The first two weeks, I felt like an unanchored ship […]

By Patti Spezaferro This Too Shall Pass by Jolene Rayment when joy makes you giddy, when brightest blinds your gaze when pride holds you up above, when easiness lets you laze Stop take a breath and remember this too shall pass treasure every moment, learn from every pain gather in your memories, they are what […]

By Patti Spezaferro The brown buds thicken on the trees, Unbound, the free streams sing, As March leads forth across the leas The wild and windy spring. –Elizabeth Akers Allen (1832–1911) I finally finished deadheading my 234 roses and now I can sit back and wait to start deadheading. Except, there is rarely a time, […]

By Patti Spezaferro The Peninsula Rose Society started off on the right foot at its January 21st member’s meeting. We had a great turnout as members came to hear Stuart Dalton’s Rose Pruning presentation. February is pruning month and Stuart gave an excellent slide talk on how to prune roses. After the presentation, consulting rosarians […]