Peering out of the windows of my office, I see the two-story blackened, shredded tips of a hardy banana (Musa basjoo), and I am reminded of the work to be done this week to its less hardy cousins. Is it really that time already? Musa basjoo, the night before frost. In my weaker [...]
For reasons that are at once both simple and ridiculous, I recently managed to injure my foot in the middle of a four week walking tour of British and French gardens. Occasionally in this life, the devil seizes the wheel, and one must laugh heartily at the abrupt change of plan or find oneself bested. [...]
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 been an interesting week. Moreover, there are still miles to go before I sleep, and the winter is not drawing [...]
By the time you read these words, I’ll be gone. I might add, “to a higher place,” but that wouldn’t sit very well with those who consider American gardens to be the best in the world. I don’t necessarily think of any country’s gardens as ‘better’ or ‘worse’ than those of any other, but it [...]
“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 here (though I do try and stay away from the excessive use of exclamation marks in my proselytizing). But if [...]
When I give you a cutting, it’s more than likely I’m going to remember. It’s not that I’m obsessed, controlling or critical (that’s a different conversation held when I’m not around), it’s simply that I love my plants. If someone expresses an interest that goes beyond “Hey that’s pretty.” I jump on it, usually offer [...]
Join me in this series as I visit some of Frederick County, Maryland’s finest independent garden centers to find out what makes them unique. Finding and buying plants that you love is often much more pleasurable than figuring out how to successfully incorporate them into your landscape once you get home. We all struggle with [...]
Now that the garden has gently shifted into architecture and mush, it’s time to reflect on the plants we grew this season and decide whether we’ll continue to grow them for seasons to come. Whether sexy new introductions or old favorites, plants excite each one of us for totally different reasons and what lights [...]
I’m not a fan of renaming something in order to change public perception. Language is powerful, minds are pliable and as any politician knows, we can quickly distance ourselves from the truth of the matter. However, every once and awhile a definition is beautifully expanded by rephrasing a term, and such is the case when [...]
Whether we have fully accepted it or not, the holiday season officially kicks off the day after Thanksgiving. You may reject the idea of Big Box lines at 2am for unnecessary gadgets and must-have technology (I do), but – completely against your will – you may also find yourself getting just a little excited at [...]
“Is the world getting more complicated, or am I just getting older?” said my sister over the phone this week. My junior by eight years, she is awash in toddler mayhem (her third Mission Impossible), which includes, but is not limited to, sketchy nap times, bottles of soap poured all over the floor and endless [...]
A little shifting of the pot ghetto yesterday revealed one too many plants happily rooted in the soil beyond their pots. It is good soil certainly, and I do not blame them, but the discovery is an inconvenient one. I have been quite content to believe that a healthy three foot dawn redwood was satisfied [...]
Updated 11/4/19 Hopefully by now you have brought in the majority of your tender succulents and tropical evergreens/gorgeous houseplants for the [presumably] long winter ahead. And hopefully by now, you have found room for them in living spaces that will soon bear the clutter of holiday decorating and higher-than-average persons per square foot. Dealing with [...]
The last of the tomatoes are ripening on the vine. Many more are currently ripening on the ground after a spate of blustery weather, and it takes a Herculean effort on my part to pick them this morning, as it is not just the harvesting but the promise of preparation implicit in the gathering that [...]
It’s a tough season for the gardener who loves to entertain. We know that we should bring in big healthy houseplants that have spent the summer outside, such as schefflera, ficus, philodendron and sansevieria. We know that they will benefit from a smooth temperature transition and react with less leaf loss and yellowing if we [...]
Many believe wholeheartedly that the time to plan your garden is in the depths of winter. Perhaps this is true in terms of the minutiae; but after years of implementing the overreach that winter weather inspires in the bedraggled, I cannot recommend it. No, the time to plan next year’s garden is now, before the [...]
Usually, a couple of hours outside on my hands and knees is all it takes to get the wheels of the mind careening toward a publishable, if highly editable, product. This week, it took ten minutes. Ten minutes of repetitive grasping, pulling and tossing massive wads of reddening Japanese Stilt Grass (Microstegium vimineum) [...]
No group of plants has been hotter in the last three years than succulents. They’re on tables, in terrariums, and garnishing everything from delicate wrists to salad plates. If you never understood the idea that plants ‘trend,’ you did the day your boss came in to work with a tiny green rosette in a pot [...]
I have a friend who has always considered a weekly bouquet of fresh flowers a necessity. She is French however, and they are presumably taught such things at their chic mothers’ beautifully sculpted knees. For years I have secretly admired her resolute stance on the subject, but as the daughter of an English father and [...]
Few things motivate a gardener the way that getting a plant ahead of another gardener does; and by the end of August we need motivation more than we need food and water. To that end, I would like to draw your attention to the random assortment of bulb catalogs that started showing up two months [...]
