Sometimes even peaceful gardeners have violent thoughts, and occasionally those thoughts are not even about white-tailed deer. A situation involving a friend of mine is a case in point. Under normal circumstances, I am not sure she would even kill a spider in the bathroom. Last week though, she stood in the middle of her … Read more
I always think that my gardening life will be more relaxed in the fall, which is yet another example of a triumph of hope over experience. In fact, the fall season is usually fraught with a long to-do list and a sense that time is running out. Life heats up after the relative ease of … Read more
Garden cyclamen are subtle plants. Their butterfly flowers float close to the ground and they have an uncanny habit of popping into view when you are looking at or for something else. I noticed mine the other day when I was running the string trimmer around the yard. A small patch of pink, ivy-leaf cyclamen … Read more
The front cover of Hugh Cavendish’s new book, A Time to Plant, looks like an abstract painting in shades of olive green, tan and rust. It is, in fact, a close-up of the exfoliating bark of a stewartia tree. The tree in question is part of a collection of stewartias at Holker Hall, the Cavendish … Read more
If I were paranoid, I would say that I am being stalked by the mallow family. Regular people cannot imagine such a thing, but we plant lovers sometimes can. Consider the following….While walking on a country road in central New York State, I saw a stand of tall, single-flowered hollyhocks blooming by the side of … Read more
