Listen/Download Audio “The time has come,” the gardener said, “to talk of many things. Of soil and lights and seedling flats, of cabbages and spring.” I can hardly believe that February has rolled around and it is time once again to find room for several hundred seedlings, four foot grow lights and filing boxes full [...]
Yesterday, while leafing through one of those meaty gardening volumes that one reads at this time of year with a large glass of red wine in one hand and a box of tissues in the other, I happened upon the following thought by Dr. Stefan Buczacki, a noted English garden writer, broadcaster and horticulturalist: “I [...]
I don’t get back to California very often. When I do, an extended visit of four to five weeks is usually called for in order to adequately serve up willing grandchildren to hungry grandparents and ravenous aunts and uncles. This is of course made possible by the generosity of my husband, who forgoes his chief [...]
Annus Horibilis in the garden was just wrapping up last year when I opened my mailbox to find cheerful booklets of cleverly packaged fantasy fiction (read: seed catalogs) rubbing shoulders with perfectly respectable bills. After the season I had just endured, seeing those two pound tomatoes, heirloom peppers in the prime of their [...]
It is the dawn of a new year, and traditions stretching back hundreds of years dictate that I must now discuss resolutions for the year ahead. It almost seems redundant somehow, because as a gardener, resolution is a constant state in which I find myself. As I pot up common geraniums in the spring, I [...]
So pretty....so fleeting It is late. I am tiptoeing down the stairs in my stocking feet for a glass of water. The house is dark and the Christmas lights have punched their card for the evening. Santa will not work his magic for a few days yet. Halfway down the stairs I [...]
Franklinia alatamaha Marsh. [adapted from W. Bartram, 1788 The phone rang late one night in early winter, just about the time I am usually reaching for the book by my bedside or guiltily opening the Netflix envelope for a bit of mindless entertainment. It was a gardening friend, and I could tell by [...]
