The Gardeners' Apprentice My husband, David, never failed to give me a card and a bouquet of roses on Valentine’s Day. When we were starting out in the suburbs, those roses were more likely to come from the vendor at Penn Station than the local florist. The thought was just as lovely, but sometimes those end-of-the-day roses were … Read more
After seeing five deer grazing contentedly on my front lawn, I started doing some serious thinking about onions. I had some nice big ones in the crisper drawer and the temptation to distract the deer by hurling those hefty vegetables was strong. Fortunately the deer heard a noise and cleared off on their own. My … Read more
Today I made a foray into the semi-snowy wasteland that is my back garden to see if I could find any hellebore buds. Recent snowfall has covered the big Christmas rose—Helleborus niger—with a white blanket. I scratched through it, but no buds have had the courage to pop out yet. Next week, after a few … Read more
The rose is the Mona Lisa of the plant world. For millennia, humans have coveted them, grown them, celebrated them in every art form and sought out new forms and varieties. Some of us, especially those who have to do hand-to-hand combat with blackspot and other rose diseases, have occasionally cursed them. But the fascination … Read more
Count on January to deliver uncertain winter weather, post-holiday doldrums and the bills for December extravagance. It also brings the moment gardeners have been waiting for—a chance to sit down with catalogs and websites and plan for the coming growing season. Snow days were meant for wallowing in horticultural daydreams, spending unlimited imaginary money, and … Read more
