The Gardeners' Apprentice The rarest flower color is true blue—not muddy blue-purple or questionable blue-pink, but bright, unabashed blue. That color is even more spectacular when it is set against a background of dull earth and comes after a winter onslaught of gray days. I rejoiced in that color yesterday when the chionodoxa or “glory of the snow” … Read more
Some years I crave simple things—flowers with only five petals, clothes without frivolous embellishments, and non-fancy food. Not this year. Life is complicated and it makes me crave opulent blooms. Fortunately, the catalogs and local plant vendors are offering luxurious double primroses in an array of colors. I have already bought several and may acquire … Read more
In HMS Pinafore, one of the most celebrated Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, the character “Buttercup” introduces herself in song with the following words, “I’m called Little Buttercup, dear Little Buttercup, though I could never tell why.” I thought of this the other day when I spotted the golden-orange buttercups now on display under one of … Read more
I am a modern gardener—at least sometimes—but I still have a soft spot for old-fashioned printed garden catalogs. Fat ones used to flood my mailbox beginning just after the winter holidays. Now, with the rise in e-commerce, thin ones begin to flood the mailbox in December. I welcome them all the same. I am not … Read more
It is late February, and the air is bone dry. That atmospheric condition will not last forever, and soon enough my part of the world will see a return of humidity. Eventually we will also experience hot weather. Now that the new season catalogs and online offerings are available, I am thinking of adding a … Read more
