December first and I’m just as shocked as you are by how quickly it got here. However, as I was sunning myself on foreign beaches last December, quaffing numerous rum punches, and feeling a bit confused by having them handed to me by Santa-clad Rastafarians in flip-flops, I intend to embrace the cold, the brown, [...]
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 [...]
Well, it certainly feels as if we’ve thwarted the groundhog. Yet I have thought this many times during my life on the East Coast and ended up with two inch green stubs to harvest for an evening’s Caesar salad. Winter will bite back before it is all done, and neither we nor our plants will [...]
When the holiday buzz was blissfully over, you probably looked around your decorated surroundings with a calm eye and thought: “I’d like to find an [insert x] for next year” or, “An x sitting in that corner would sure look fabulous” or, “Did you see the beautifully lit x on their house this year? Gorgeous!” [...]
Tempus fugit, and it’s currently fugiting at an alarming pace. I am recently returned from trips and conferences that swallowed up December and January in phases of preparation, execution and recovery, and Christmas is still sitting on the dining room table, neatly compartmentalized and just tidy enough to consider throwing a blanket over it till [...]
I’ve just returned from an exhausting but eye-popping week at MANTS, the annual Mid-Atlantic Nursery Trade Show in Baltimore. And, 3000 booths and a lot of handshakes later, I am now sitting in a pile of glossy, wildly gorgeous literature and trying to figure out what might be of interest to readers (and to myself) [...]
It may be cold. And windy. And fairly miserable at six in the morning when you’ve misplaced the car scraper. But let me remind you that we have already passed the shortest day of the year mark and there is hope yet ahead. If my words seem empty (they certainly do to me at the [...]
“So what are we growing right now?” was the question asked of me last week as I escaped hearth and home for a little day-after-Christmas retail therapy. The questioner: a reader and gardener and beautifully turned out shopper who recognized me in spite of wild hair and two coats. I made a mental note to [...]
Though I annually make fun of the design and fashion addicts that sit in rapt attention waiting for Pantone to release their “Color of the Year” (this year’s Greenery might signal a temporary cease-fire to that snark-war), I’m always curious as to the winner of the Perennial Plant Association’s Perennial Plant of the Year. Most [...]
Christmas is upon us this week, I have recently added another birthday notch to my leather belt, and now we stand upon the brink of another long, cold winter. Of the three statements, the first is the only one to bring me any joy, not least of all because my Christmas shopping is done and [...]
At this time of year there is much advice floating about to “use natural materials” to create amazing holiday decorations cheaply. Indeed I’ve floated much of it myself. When it comes to making holiday gifts and decorations, 'rustic' is the name of the game these days. However it did occur to me this [...]
Up until last year, I'd never put together a holiday gift guide for readers. Truly useful gifts rarely go out of fashion. Then I was asked by a friend if I had some suggestions for gifts for her gardening mother, and surprisingly I did. In fact I could easily think of quite a [...]
In every home there is a place where unfolded laundry is thrown and a week’s worth of junk is shoved when guests rap upon the door unexpectedly. For some lucky souls it may be a spare room. For others it might be a more traditional space like a basement, garage, attic, or even a cupboard [...]
It’s a running joke amongst our friends that our place is the safe house for any type of future apocalyptic scenario. I’d like to believe that they just want to get together, laugh, drink wine, and discuss the mysticism of Yeats before the zombies descend, but in reality, there’s something about owning your own wheat [...]
With millions of innovative gardeners on this planet, differences of opinion and horticultural hair-pulling sessions are bound to erupt. Most of us look forward to a little good-natured thrust and parry – particularly in February when we’re all getting tired of endless conversations about how this winter stacks up to the last. Well this [...]
Winter is a time for research, and not just of the deeper contents of one’s drinks cabinet. Are there techniques that you’ve been wanting to know a little bit more about? Perhaps you want to familiarize yourself with some of the great garden essayists, or prepare yourself to visit a few of the big name [...]
This extremely rude specimen has been affectionately named "Happy" - and I always avert my eyes when brushing off the snow. I'd like that bit of errant bark to make me smile just as broadly in ten years as it does now. An end-of-days snowfall is coming to the Mid-Atlantic this afternoon, if [...]
Have you been walking through your garden? I hope so. At this time of year we are as clearheaded as we will ever be. Winter may not afford us congenial temperatures, but what it lacks in warmth, it more than makes up for in perspective. Any issues due to poor spacing stand naked before the [...]
[ed. The following article can also be found stirring up comments at Garden Rant later this week.] Tesselaar’s Blue Storm Agapanthus is worth growing because it’s a high-impact, no-nonsense plant, not because it typifies the 2016 Color of the Year “Serenity” – photo credit: Tesselaar Plants, 2006 Though I enjoy dressing well, I’m [...]
Lately I am of two minds regarding the passage of time. In one, I stare out of my bedroom window in the early morning at tiny junipers and Japanese maples, and yearn for additional seasons of growth and maturity to flesh out designs still in their infancy. Not a minute later however I have turned [...]
