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 [...]
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; [...]
This morning I spent two precious hours as a machete-wielding rock climber cutting back vines and brambles. This is not an unusual occupation when you live in a woodland, but today I was there for one reason and one reason only: to free from suffocation the immature redbuds that have seeded themselves along the lane [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Choosing a theme like “Holland: Flowering the World” gives the Philadelphia Flower Show a great opportunity to surprise and delight the public. After all, attendees already think they know what they’ll see when they walk through that bank of doors and onto the show floor of the Convention Center: Bulbs, and lots of [...]
Over the last eight years, I have written many columns encouraging people to face the space in which they find themselves and to create the garden that lives within them. Particularly in the midst of the difficult economic period of the last decade. Disturbingly, one of the things that I often heard when I initially [...]
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) [...]
I realize that I'm giving you a lot to choose from on the weekend of May 21st, but luckily you don't need to choose. Garden tours in Frederick, MD and Shepherdstown, WV run on both Saturday AND Sunday! You've already heard a bit of news about Frederick's tour, but if you've never made the gorgeous [...]
It would take a stronger woman than I to walk away. We’re acquiring right now. Oh come on, don’t pretend that you’re the only one abstaining. Seventy-five degrees with a light easterly breeze and low humidity works on gardeners the way a little Cole Porter and the smell of fresh roasted coffee works [...]
It's garden tour time folks, and for those in Central Maryland or Northern Virginia, this one is right in our backyard. For over twenty years, the Frederick, Maryland Beyond the Garden Gates tour has attracted gardeners and non-gardeners alike to a terrific line-up of public and private gardens. I'll attend many private tours over the [...]
If you can't be in England now that April's here - don't despair. We've got some stunning gardens on this side of the pond and now, from April 23-30, The Garden Clubs of Virginia step up and highlight 250 of them during Historic Garden Week. Since 1927, this event has been the highlight of spring [...]
