Orange Glow

‘Orange Glow’ is up and glowing, even though “up” is a relative term for a plant that is only a few inches tall.  Though it has the same name as a popular cleaning product, ‘Orange Glow’ is in fact a winter aconite, a type of buttercup, belonging to the same Ranunculaceae family as the more … Read more

Plant Crazy

Plant craziness has attacked me again.  As always, it came on suddenly, as I sat down after a long day’s work and paged through one of my favorite English gardening magazines.  These publications are full of what my husband called “plant pornography”—gorgeous photos of alluring specimens, dripping with dew and ready to jump right off … Read more

Waiting for Lady Elphinstone

Right now I have patches of snowdrops coming into bloom.  The earliest appeared on Christmas day, followed by a long fallow period while winter did its worst.  Now, the daylight hours last longer and the snowdrops are brave enough to emerge.  I have a score of different varieties, but my favorite—the one I have been … Read more

Lupine Lust

The selling of souls is serious business; just ask the poets and playwrights who have explored that theme over the centuries.  Gardeners generally have little time for such existential considerations, because they are busy weeding, watering and doing other garden chores.  But every once in awhile, a plant comes along that is so alluring, it … Read more

Ready Made

Not all of us are adept at garden design and only some of us can afford professional help.  What can we do to get beauty in our landscapes at a cost that still allows us to buy plants? Of course there are numerous internet sites, software programs, and other web-based means of finding garden plans … Read more