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A Gardener’s Progression of Cruelty: Volunteer Seedlings
‘One must be cruel to be kind’ is a hackneyed phrase that must have originated in a garden setting. Where else do men and women of good conscience perpetuate extreme acts of violence without a moment’s...
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Weeks of Water
Last night my husband and I were awoken by yet another storm pounding on what currently passes for a roof around here. After a few minutes of staring at the ceiling thinking about the gutters, the...
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June – A Month for Ferns
There are very few plants that make you look like a great gardener as well as a healthy stand of ferns. Ironically, this has little to do with the resident gardener and everything to do with proper...
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In Defense of Bad Taste: The Story of Toad Hall
I spent a quiet afternoon two weeks ago working in a small garden outside my guest room windows. The room is built into a sloping bank and partially surrounded by a deck, and therefore the garden is...
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Are You Observing? Or Are You Ignoring?
Muttering to oneself in the garden must have been at an all-time high this week. Quite apart from the fact that it is July and there is mandatory muttering to be done after the expensive party that is...
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Let’s Lose The Zealotry & Plant for Joy
“Plant for foliage!” is a term you have probably heard a great deal over the last few years. But then you’ve probably also heard “Plant for pollinators!” and more than likely you’ve heard both slogans...
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The Return of the Queen
There are no adventures quite as adventurous as reclaiming the garden after a long absence abroad – and during the height of the growing season no less. From bewilderment to bloodshed to tears, it has...
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What Can We Learn From British Gardens?
Fresh from an exhaustive three weeks driving 1800 miles to tour British gardens and their associated tea rooms, I am full of ideas and inspiration for next year’s planting schemes. The British know how...
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Clean It Up or Let It Be: The Fall Garden
Well, we’re square in the middle of the autumn season. I hope you’re enjoying your garden right now and not thinking too much about the end of it. These last little drops of fall are to be savored –...
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Right Plant, Right Place – The Wisdom of Beth Chatto
“We lost too many plants in our impatience to possess them, because we had not achieved the proper growing conditions.” – Beth Chatto, The Beth Chatto Handbook _______________________________ If ever a...
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Decorating The Thanksgiving Table with Natural Materials
It’s Thanksgiving morning. What have you forgotten? You’ve thrown the turkey in the oven, the stuffing is made and on its way to being glorious, and your sister is bringing the rolls and jello. In a...
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Nail It! Three Tricks to Make a Gorgeous Natural Wreath This Season
It’s the weekend before Christmas, and even though you’ve tried to ignore it, the spirit is in the air and you have an itch to undertake one last decorating project: a natural wreath for the front...
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Staying On Top of Cool-Season Weeds
How should one weed in the winter? Those with a strong attachment to their recliners might say ‘one shouldn’t,’ and leave it at that. I completely understand. I have a strong bond with my yellow...
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Flexibility in the Midst of Uncertainty: A Chat with Scott Aker
In the last days of 2018, there was one email I looked forward to each morning in amongst the coupons and the Groupons and the chaff and the wheat that now passes for correspondence in the 21st...
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Dismiss British Garden Writers? Absurd.
This week I want to sincerely thank Scott Beuerlein, friend and columnist at Horticulture magazine, whose irreverent column about British garden writers got me out of my funk and racing for the laptop...
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Taking Steps Toward Planting a Winter Garden
At the top of my driveway, slightly hidden on a south-facing slope that could less generously be termed a rocky mound, there is a small gathering of snowdrops and eranthis that in a few short months...
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Garden Resolutions: The Triumph of Hope Over Experience
The symbolic promise of a new year is not enough for me this time around. Normally happy to raise my glass and cheerfully throw out The Old as the clock ticks towards midnight, this year I am not so...
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My Love Hate Relationship With Snow
There are few things more magical than a snowfall, and few terms more overused to describe it. Nonetheless, the cliché communicates the outright miracle of slowing a world that refuses to slow itself....
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Building Habitat Nests for Wildlife…and For Me
Over the last two winters, I’ve been engaged in a curious pursuit which has baffled some visitors but thrilled others – precisely the way I love to garden. I’m building habitat nests – and it’s one of...
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Why I Don’t Want to Lose My ‘Ugly’ Snag
I never thought I could find joy in, much less love, a dead tree standing on my property, smack in the middle of otherwise pastoral views. But I not only love a dead tree, I’m distressed by the fact...
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