events

Warming to winter pruning

Warming to winter pruning

Gifted gardeners do not hunker indoors in winter when they could be outdoors getting advantageous pruning done. About 30 residents gathered at the Town Hall on Saturday, Feb. 8, to participate in a hands-on winter pruning workshop sponsored by the Amenia Garden Club. Expert local gardener Maryanne Snow Pitts provided guidance and encouragement.

Photo by Leila Hawken

AMENIA — Tips on prudent pruning and how to do it properly during the cold months were the order of the day at the Town Hall on Saturday, Feb. 8, as local expert gardener Maryanne Snow-Pitts, a Wassaic resident for 23 years, shared her extensive know-how.

The pruning workshop was sponsored by the Amenia Garden Club and attracted about 30 residents of mixed experience who sought to know more about proper techniques for winter pruning of trees and bushes. The Town Hall’s grounds provided prime examples of bushes and trees needing some expert attention.

During an information session before the start of the snipping, clipping and sawing, Snow-Pitts shared advice on how to approach the work and bring about a good outcome.

“It’s best to avoid hacking at plants badly,” Snow-Pitts advised. “When your pruner is sharp — and clean — it’s the best time to prune,” she added.

Observing the optimal shape of the tree or bush and how the plant is growing, whether reaching horizontally toward sun, for example, are important considerations, Snow-Pitts said. She focused also on how to prune prior mistakes, such as steady pruning of the branch tips, a debilitating action that will eventually deprive the core of the plant of sunlight.

“Don’t prune more than one-third of live wood at a time,” she cautioned, favoring diversity in cuts that will create branches of varying lengths. She advised identifying and removing dead wood first and taking out the larger old canes to promote new, healthier growth.

events

Latest News

Juneteenth and Mumbet’s legacy

Juneteenth and Mumbet’s legacy

Sheffield resident, singer Wanda Houston will play Mumbet in "1781" on June 19 at 7 p.m. at The Center on Main, Falls Village.

Jeffery Serratt

In August of 1781, after spending thirty years as an enslaved woman in the household of Colonel John Ashley in Sheffield, Massachusetts, Elizabeth Freeman, also known as Mumbet, was the first enslaved person to sue for her freedom in court. At the time of her trial there were 5,000 enslaved people in the state. MumBet’s legal victory set a precedent for the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts in 1790, the first in the nation. She took the name Elizabeth Freeman.

Local playwrights Lonnie Carter and Linda Rossi will tell her story in a staged reading of “1781” to celebrate Juneteenth, ay 7 p.m. at The Center on Main in Falls Village, Connecticut.Singer Wanda Houston will play MumBet, joined by actors Chantell McCulloch, Tarik Shah, Kim Canning, Sherie Berk, Howard Platt, Gloria Parker and Ruby Cameron Miller. Musical composer Donald Sosin added, “MumBet is an American hero whose story deserves to be known much more widely.”

Keep ReadingShow less
history

A sweet collaboration with students in Torrington

A sweet collaboration with students in Torrington

The new mural painted by students at Saint John Paul The Great Academy in Torrington, Connecticut.

Photo by Kristy Barto, owner of The Nutmeg Fudge Company

Thanks to a unique collaboration between The Nutmeg Fudge Company, local artist Gerald Incandela, and Saint John Paul The Great Academy in Torrington, Connecticut a mural — designed and painted entirely by students — now graces the interior of the fudge company.

The Nutmeg Fudge Company owner Kristy Barto was looking to brighten her party space with a mural that celebrated both old and new Torrington. She worked with school board member Susan Cook and Incandela to reach out to the Academy’s art teacher, Rachael Martinelli.

Keep ReadingShow less
community

In the company of artists

In the company of artists

Curator Henry Klimowicz, left, with artists Brigitta Varadi and Amy Podmore at The Re Institute

Aida Laleian

For anyone who wants a deeper glimpse into how art comes about, an on-site artist talk is a rich experience worth the trip.On Saturday, June 14, Henry Klimowicz’s cavernous Re Institute — a vast, converted 1960’s barn north of Millerton — hosted Amy Podmore and Brigitta Varadi, who elucidated their process to a small but engaged crowd amid the installation of sculptures and two remarkable videos.

Though they were all there at different times, a common thread among Klimowicz, Podmore and Varadi is their experience of New Hampshire’s famed MacDowell Colony. The silence, the safety of being able to walk in the woods at night, and the camaraderie of other working artists are precious goads to hardworking creativity. For his part, for fifteen years, Klimowicz has promoted community among thousands of participating artists, in the hope that the pairs or groups he shows together will always be linked. “To be an artist,” he stressed, “is to be among other artists.”

Keep ReadingShow less
exhibit