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
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
I have spent part of a fall weekend hot on the trail of a woman named “Dodo Hanbury Forbes.” The quest began when I unpacked Ms. Forbes’ namesake plant, a tall, pink-flowered Phlox paniculata. The phlox was hale and hearty and is residing in a shady area on my back porch for a couple of … Read more
Butterflies delineate the transition from early to late fall. Choice food plants–asters and butterfly bushes—are in bloom in my garden now, in mid September, and Monarchs and skippers dance among the flowerheads. Summer’s swallowtails are mostly gone, but the ubiquitous Cabbage Whites persist. A few stragglers remain from the horde of Painted Ladies that descended … Read more
