There are many who do not garden in February, or do not choose to aim for a four-season garden. And while I understand this attitude, particularly if your gardens are covered in two feet of snow for the majority of winter, for me, February is a too-short month that allows me to take care of [...]
A new year, a new growing season. January is a wonderfully busy month in my garden, as I am given the opportunity to get on top of difficult areas of bramble and vine without the overwhelming and often impenetrable problem of foliage. This is the month I attack the woodland garden and the stream banks, [...]
November is a different type of transition month in temperate Mid-Atlantic gardens. Though it often starts gently, with the slight bite and color of October, by the end of the month we remember what we had forgotten during the growing season - quiet, naked woodlands; spicy, earthy scents, cold - not cool - mornings, and [...]
Tramping through a collage of browned and yellowed tulip poplar leaves on my way to the front door today I realized I have absolutely no desire or plans to sweep them up. They symbolize the end of a busy season and a beautifully gentle month ahead, and contribute to the earthy fragrance I'm starting to [...]
There are just a few days of August left, and though it almost seems futile to discuss the month in terms of its garden life, I find myself finally with an hour or two to do just that. And, as Christopher Lloyd once said, the time to do a thing is when you have time [...]
July. The exuberance of spring is over, and gardeners are looking at the remains of a pretty good party. But whether your garden looks hungover or not depends on the planting you did in the spring. Let's hope it included some flowering heat survivors such as echinacea, black-eyed susan, liatris, pelargonium, goldenrod, verbascum, daylily, [...]
May has symbolized rebirth and a definitive end to winter throughout the centuries. It is at once a vigorous month and a calming one, but we must calm our vigorous urges so we might see it. Roses. Peonies. Iris. Philadelphus. Clematis. Rhodos. Allium..... For many gardeners, this is the month our garden is almost at [...]
The signs of spring right now are real, but can feel illusory when the wind begins to gust or the sun is covered by a passing cloud. But assuming that the earth has not fundamentally changed its course, we should be standing now at the beginning of something wonderful in the Northern Hemisphere. And that [...]
The gardener will be busy this month, and find that the available hours to work bear no relation to the amount of work that needs to be done. That is the hallmark of the June garden. In the Northern Hemisphere, we officially transition in June from the spring garden to the summer garden with the [...]
December is a month of transition in the temperate gardener’s mind. I look at it like a well-deserved break and savor every second. It is a resting month in the Mid-Atlantic garden, which is certainly convenient as it is not a resting month in any other part of our lives. The holiday season – frantic [...]
October remains my favorite month. I have said that of May -- and might do so again during a particularly charming spring, but October will always possess a deep resonance that May cannot muster. At once it immerses us in the sights, scents and bounty of the growing season, and then just as suddenly, releases [...]
