Autumn Equinox

We have just passed the autumn equinox, which marks the official end of summer and the start of fall.  We are also halfway to the winter solstice, which is the shortest and therefore darkest day of the year.  Many cultures in the Northern Hemisphere celebrate the harvest around the time of the autumn equinox.  In … Read more

Spring Longevity

The countryside around my family’s summer cottage in Central New York State is studded with former farm sites.  Sometimes buildings or their dilapidated remains are evident on the overgrown lots that were once the hubs of working family farms.  More often, all that remains are the horticultural memories of those farms—garden plants once tended by … Read more

Tale of a Swale

This year, some parts of the United States—and elsewhere in the world—were besieged by wildfires of historic proportions.  In my part of the world we have been drowning in an abundance of rain, culminating last week in devastating flooding as the end of a hurricane roared through.  It made me wish that we could somehow … Read more

Rose Rosettes

If you aim to strike fear into a rose breeder’s heart, all you need are three little words—“rose rosette disease.” Rose rosette disease is an insidious rose killer.  Spread by microscopic eriophyid mites, the virus affects only roses.  There is no cure and it is almost invariably fatal.  To make matters worse, no rose species … Read more

August Lilies

August makes me think of green things, like the giant luna moth, which I have sighted on August evenings, and peridot, the green-shaded August birthstone.  But I think the best green thing in the August garden is the “August lily”, or Hosta plantaginea. Why is this hosta, sometimes also know as Corfu lily, white plantain … Read more