A friend of mine gardens in a community plot and noticed a very large, yellow-flowered plant sprouting on his allotment. He asked if I could identify it from a description, which turned out to be an easy task. At this time of the year, a plant that is three to six feet tall, with yellow … Read more
The other day I was out for a walk in my neighborhood when I saw a pair of goldfinches flitting through a bed of blue cornflowers. Backlit by the summer sun, the male goldfinch was clad in his bright yellow courting dress and the cornflowers were an especially vivid shade of cerulean blue. The picture … Read more
I am rereading The Morville Hours, a marvelous book, published in 2010 by English garden writer, Katherine Swift. The author, a scholar/gardener and former librarian at Trinity College, Dublin, describes the twenty-year process of creating an amazing garden on a National Trust property in Shropshire. The book juxtaposes the details of garden making with the … Read more
Yarrow—Achillea–a plant cultivated in gardens for a very long time, has garnered a host of nicknames, some of which are worthy of Harry Potter. Among the more colorful monikers are soldier’s woundwort, herbe militaris, bloodwort, nose bleed, devil’s nettle, old-man’s-pepper and—my favorite–stenchgrass. Combine those bloody nicknames with the fact that Linnaeus, in the midst of … Read more
I love my oak leaf hydrangea, or Hydrangea quercifolia, now in bloom, along with the similar oak leaf varieties illuminating lightly shaded spots throughout my neighborhood. Its cone-shaped flower panicles are enormous; each one covered with creamy white florets. They make wonderful cut flowers—a symphony in fresh white and green. Eventually, of course, the panicles … Read more
