Skunk Cabbage

If Eastern skunk cabbage—Symplocarpus foetidus—were a person, you would avoid him.  Inactive for part of the year, skunk cabbage comes alive in late winter.  It never looks terribly attractive and most of the time it smells awful enough to justify one of its nicknames, “polecat weed.”  People and even animals tend to avoid the plant … Read more

Winter Buttercups

Now that I am officially on spring watch, I am having the usual seasonal regrets about early-blooming plants that I did not order or install last fall.  Sometimes, however, life gives you second chances, and ten days ago a second chance presented itself.  I was pouring over the slim annual catalog from the Temple Nursery, … Read more