Gardeners may swill champagne along with the rest of the world at 12:01 on January 1, but most of us don’t truly feel the New Year’s spirit until the temperature starts to rise and the first snowdrops, crocuses and winter aconite pop out of the still-frozen ground. Even if a bit of snow lingers in … Read more
The horticultural world—past and present– is full of big personalities, including a colorful cast of plant fanatics, design divas and fastidious flower arrangers. Each adds a bright strand to the tapestry of horticultural history. My recent trip to the Philadelphia Flower Show inspired thoughts of one such big personality, J. Liddon Pennock, Jr.—1913-2003— a longtime … Read more
I did not go through hell to get to the Philadelphia Flower Show, but my faithful PFS companion and I went through every possible permutation of “wintery mix” to get home. It doesn’t matter; the trip was worth it. The flower show this year was big, bold and beautiful, not to mention being worth the … Read more
Over the centuries, writers have spilled a lot of ink over a little flower—Galanthus nivalis or snowdrop. Tennyson and Wordsworth have sung its praises in lines of verse. Elizabethan herbalist John Gerard described the plant in his 1597 Herball, when galanthus was already old news. It was most likely described by the great botanist and … Read more
Over the centuries, humans have had a complex relationship with members of the tobacco—Nicotiana—family. We have praised them, vilified them, smoked some species, distilled others into insecticides and burned still others in various rituals. One thing is clear. When it comes to ornamental or flowering tobacco, there is much to praise and almost nothing to … Read more
