Every once in awhile, a specific plant will have an absolutely wonderful year. This usually happens the year after you give it up for dead but are too lazy or preoccupied to dig it up and hurl it onto the compost pile. My tradescantia were not in any danger of that fate, but up until … Read more
If the abundant asters, Japanese anemones and the newly-revived roses didn’t convince me that it’s fall, the weeds certainly would. Suddenly the crabgrass—scourge of the summer lawn and garden—is gone and the onion grass is back. I took the first tentative strands of it out today, while I was dividing some tradescantia. More will certainly … Read more
UP ON THE ROOF The media has given a lot of publicity over the past few years to “green” structures, including roofs and walls. Green roofs, when properly supported, planted and tended, can keep buildings cooler than conventional roofing materials. Green walls are a way to beautify interior or exterior space by growing plants … Read more
When it comes to gardening, there is one constant in my life—I never buy enough tulips. I don’t think animals eat or move most of them, nor do my bulbs have an uncommonly low success rate. It is just that the bag of bulbs that seems so large in the fall when I am digging … Read more
There is something very valuable in getting down on your knees and weeding or planting bulbs. Today when I was putting in some fall-blooming crocus, I noticed what I thought was a patch of clover right by a large clump of Helleborus x orientalis (Lenten Rose). On closer inspection, the “clover” turned out to be … Read more
