GROUND COVER ROSES It seems a bit strange to be thinking about roses when the precipitation is coming down in pellets outside, but I can’t help it. I just attached a bouquet of dried rosebuds to a Christmas wreath and the sight of them triggered thoughts of spring. As the growing season dwindled … Read more
GROWING WILD In 1961 author Irving Stone published a best-selling biographical novel, The Agony and the Ecstasy, on the life of Michaelangelo. I could use Stone’s title to describe my garden at this moment. The “ecstasy” part is easy. The first roses have finally begun to bloom, ending their long winter and early … Read more
THIS IS THE YEAR Every February baseball fans wake up at the beginning of Spring Training and all of them say, “This is the year!” You know the rest: “This is the year the Mets–or Cubs or Cardinals–will go all the way.” There is a palpable feeling of excitement and a renewed sense of … Read more
DOUBLE GERANIUMS In my garden this will be the Year of the Fluffy Flower. Ever since the first mail order catalogs arrived last December I have been mesmerized by the pictures of double-flowered varieties of hellebores, daylilies, primroses and Shasta daisies. My usual love of simplicity has gone south in favor of the pursuit of … Read more
HALO HYDRANGEAS Every once in awhile a new plant or group of plants comes along that seems to embody all of the prevailing horticultural trends. It happened in 2006, when Hines Horticulture, one of America’s biggest wholesale plant growers, introduced its Halo Hydrangeasâ„¢. This spring these archetypal twenty-first century plants will be widely available … Read more
