I love all kinds of roses and have as many in my garden as I can cram into the limited sunny space. My “favorite” is usually the one in bloom at the moment, though I do have a few that are especially dear to my heart. Rosa ‘The Fairy’ is one of them. You have … Read more
At high summer, no respectable flower garden should be without garden phlox or Phlox paniculata. Strange to say, the suburb where I live is somewhat short on phlox. This is probably because it is long on easy to grow annuals like impatiens. There is nothing wrong with impatiens, but a well-established clump of brilliantly colored … Read more
Someday I will write a garden book and the title will be My Garden in Twenty-Five Mistakes. Each chapter will detail one of my particularly egregious garden mistakes and the steps I took to rectify it. My book will be the perfect antidote to all those garden books that detail how the garden owner inherited … Read more
I am not always wildly successful at growing plants from seeds. This is because, I don’t have a full-fledged seed-starting set-up indoors and I do have a full-time job. Excuses aside, I am much better at letting plants sow themselves outdoors and grubbing out the occasional unwanted seedlings. That method ensures that I can lavish … Read more
Way back in 1939 Ethel Water’s sang a set of torrid lyrics written by Irving Berlin. The first line goes: `“Oh, we’re having a heat wave, a tropical heat wave.” Many of us are singing that song right now. Berlin’s “heat wave” was generated by an unnamed human temptress. Our current heat wave is generated … Read more
