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 [...]
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 – after all, they are what we will remember when the January banshees start to scream. [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Well, it’s happened. The leaves are more or less gone and it looks like winter out there. A friend writes on social media “‘Tis bitter cold. And I am sick at heart.” – though he might be referring to something else entirely. I myself am in a Midsummer Night’s Dream frame of mind, thinking more [...]
