Hamburger Helper is a supermarket panacea that extends and livens up ground meat to make a one-dish meal. Mulch helper is a homemade extender for store-bought mulch. Lately I have been using a lot of mulch helper. I like to use shredded cedar bark mulch from the garden center. It’s not all that expensive–until you … Read more
I am a grandmother, which is hardly unusual. Like all grandparents, I like to brag that my grandchildren are unique. But that word is actually an understatement–all my grandchildren are geraniums. They belong to my daughter, who buys them, installs them in elegant pots and fusses over them like any other doting parent. She is … Read more
My collections of garden books and garden weeds are roughly the same size. I haven’t learned much from the weeds–except that they are eternal–but I have learned a lot from the books. There are some lessons, though, that only experience can teach. Here are a few of them. Self Seeding vs. Self Preservation—If you have … Read more
My grandparents’ house was like a small English island in the middle of a vast American sea. They went back and forth to regularly to visit English relatives and the relatives, in turn, sent gifts of impenetrable black fruitcakes every Christmas. A biscuit tin bearing the likenesses of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth sat … Read more
A few weeks ago I wrote about crinums, an old southern garden stalwart that I coveted for years and finally acquired. I also mentioned another frost-tender object of horticultural desire—agapanthus or Lily of the Nile. At the time, I thought it was unlikely that an agapanthus would find its way into my garden in the … Read more
