For years common straw—that unassuming by-product of grain production—has played a supporting role in our homes and gardens. It has cushioned our strawberries, keeping the fruit from rotting on the ground. It has adorned our porches in the fall, sometimes serving as modular seating for Halloween scarecrows or faux zombies. It has mulched our garden … Read more
The weather is not cooperating with me. The vernal equinox has passed, the snowdrops have been up for weeks and the hellebores are blooming their heads off. Last year at this time, temperatures were in the sixties. That was unseasonable. This is unreasonable. It is almost April and the weather people are still using obscene … Read more
There are some things in this life that are just too good to miss. One of them is the Philadelphia Flower Show. A few years ago, Flower Show week found me recovering from a bad bout of the flu. It took a major effort just to get from my bed to the bathroom and I … Read more
I love the process of “setting the garden to rights” each spring. This spring the task is especially daunting because of the aftereffects of Hurricane Sandy. I am very lucky that all I have to worry about is the garden, but the work is still there. The rear of my back garden was covered with … Read more
Paging through an English garden magazine recently, I saw a column devoted to the snowdrop chapter of the unwritten garden rule book. Traditional wisdom holds that snowdrops should only be divided and transplanted “in the green”—just as the blooms fade in early spring. Many snowdrop growers have followed that rule since the beginning of time—or … Read more
