The Gardeners' Apprentice The tall asters that dominate my front garden used to be known to dirt gardeners and botanists alike as “asters.” Botanists and plant taxonomists now call them Symphyotrichum, a name that makes simple plants sound complicated and inaccessible. Everyone else still calls them asters. I hope the plant taxonomists will take the hint and rescind … Read more
A few days ago I read an article in The Telegraph, an English newspaper, on the fabled long borders at Great Dixter, an estate garden that was the longtime domain of the late plantsman and author Christopher Lloyd. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/9552586/Great-Dixter-gardens-going-out-in-a-blaze-of-glory.html) Great Dixter is open to the public full time, so the beds and borders have to … Read more
When it comes to gardening, there is one constant in my life—I never buy enough tulips. I don’t think animals eat or move most of them, nor do my bulbs have an uncommonly low success rate. It is just that the bag of bulbs that seems so large in the fall when I am digging … Read more
Every quarter I receive a copy of the excellent English garden journal, Hortus. It is a serious publication, full of long-form articles about all aspects of gardening. Its hallmarks include black and white drawings—no glossy photos—and high literary and horticultural standards. To my knowledge, there is nothing quite like it published in the United States … Read more
It is time now to get down to the serious business of buying bulbs. Summer is ebbing away, the Monarch butterflies are massing for their epic flight to warmer climes, and the stores have already had their Halloween displays out for a month. The bulb catalogs hit the doorsteps in August and the garden centers … Read more
