Spring or Winter? March is of two minds. I understand completely. Although this month marks a significant change in the weather going forward, that change brings with it many tasks for the gardener. Sometimes we feel up to hitting them hard and sometimes we could use a few more weeks of winter to prepare for [...]
Last week, I glanced at a bronze statue of a pig with wings that sits on my stone steps, and thought, "Well, that pretty much sums it up right now." Crazy things are happening. Crazy times make us re-examine our dependencies. Even if we don't change anything, it's good to know where we stand and [...]
Miraculous spring. In the midst of the worry and panic that currently grips the nation, I am thankful at least that the Northern Hemisphere is emerging into this soul-lifting season. The weather is warming and the earth is awakening – just as we need more access to our outside world and more opportunities to be [...]
You don’t have to have a garden to enjoy daffodils. Anyone can buy a few stems at the grocery store and brighten bedside tables and bathroom countertops with their joyful heads and sweet fragrance. Children can be brought to gardening through the miracle of planting a few bulbs in fall and watching spring unfold; [...]
If you’re wondering what to use, this isn’t the article for you. If you’re wondering why to use – and perhaps how to use – read on. The sentences above might be a little uncomfortable to read. Though we understand that social media is addictive, discussing it in terms of ‘use’ implies something darker [...]
My subconscious was working overtime last week. At about the same time I was throwing up my hands up at the cruel and unusual punishment that is parenting today’s American teenager, I decided to pick up ten random balls of fluffy, need-me-desperately adoration. And, within the space of six days and a half a bag [...]
I intended yesterday to have a little walk around the place, observing what was and what wasn’t coming up. And I did. But these things always evolve (some would argue, devolve) into a large scale something or other, and before I knew it, I had taken the serpentine bed almightily in hand. A strong, sexy [...]
There are very few plants that make you look like a great gardener as well as a healthy stand of ferns. Ironically, this has little to do with the resident gardener and everything to do with proper placement, but if you don’t know that when you visit my garden, I won't be the one to [...]
Not satisfied with feeling overwhelmed with spring cleaning, spring wardrobe changeover, spring home repairs and spring holiday plans, I thought it might be clever to go outside last week, pick up a trowel and increase my anxiety in the spring garden. Beginning the process means a shift in priorities and a horrifying realization of everything [...]
Whether you like it or not, planning what you’re planting in the season ahead is less important than figuring out what you’ll be planting it in. Soil matters, and can spell the difference between healthy, beautiful plants that resist the malevolent forces of Mother Nature, or weak, pest-infested plants that you have to stop yourself [...]
One of the most popular talks I've been giving lately deals with maintenance and balancing one’s life with one’s garden – more specifically, not taking on a project that creates six new maintenance projects in the foreseeable hereafter when the lifeboat is already taking on water. And to those watching me bounce around the podium, [...]
It’s disconcerting to realize your plants are bigger. A lot bigger. When a tree or shrub finally grips the earth with a committed heart and gets down to the business of seriously growing, the gardener can instinctively feel the change. And it’s frightening. This Edgeworthia chrysantha doesn't look like much its second [...]
Last week, an audience member at a lecture asked me how I take time to enjoy my garden. She liked to sit down, she said, and had benches everywhere to that end, but the minute she actually relaxed into one of them, her eyes would see a weed, or a wilting flower, or one of [...]
We launch right in, don’t we? Even before the stores have had a chance to discretely remove the de-icing supplies and replace them with citronella buckets, we have moved mountains out there. Some of us, quite literally. The chores in the spring garden are too numerous to list and we wouldn’t have time to refer [...]
By the beginning of April, seed starting has been featuring heavily on the gardener’s weekend to-do list, claiming what little time we have between catch-up laundry and filing the dreaded 1040. By the time we finally draw breath and look around at the new life perhaps springing out of hedgerow and front walkway, it has [...]
If you prefer to grow much of your garden from seed, the process of starting it can be a chaotic mess that will plague you from February till the growing season finally comes to an end in autumn. You’ll have two months off and then before you know it, you’ll be starting the process [...]
Wednesday night’s after-school activities (and I suppose one could argue, after-life activities) consist of a long drive to a neighboring community where my daughter attends her confirmation class, and I hunt for a quiet chair, an electrical outlet and an unemployed Muse to come and sit with me awhile. If the garden has seen much [...]
It’s the first day of SPRING and in celebration I’ll be giving away a copy of my new book 'Big Dreams, Small Garden' each month of the growing season ahead! If you’re struggling with a tough space or budget and need a bit of guidance/inspiration/commiseration and a ton of gorgeous photos to get you excited [...]
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 [...]
Thanks to a snowy day there is order where once was chaos. There is a certain kind of panic at this time of year when the winter starts to draw to a close and I calculate how many tasks I need to finish before the last piece of wood is thrown into a [...]
