Sometimes, no matter what you do, plants just die. When it happens, you haul them out of the ground, consign them to the compost pile and ease on down the horticultural road. Other times, you think a plant is dead and it makes a phoenix-like resurrection. This happened to me two weeks ago. The phoenix … Read more
When I was much younger and had very little life experience under my belt, I lapped up elegiac poetry. I am pretty sure that many bookish teenage girls did the same thing before the advent of 24/7 texting. Elegiac poetry also paired nicely with the hunger pains engendered by the tea and strawberry yogurt diet … Read more
COVER-UPS It is spring and everything looks healthy—especially chickweed, wild onion and dandelions. As all gardeners know, Nature abhors bare ground and works hard to cover it as soon as possible. Unfortunately the plants that cover the quickest are the aforementioned weeds. Dandelions are nice if you want to make salad from the young greens … Read more
In 2000 the horticultural world turned upside down with the introduction of a new rose. Its registration name was ‘RADrazz’, but it became known to the world as ‘Knock Out’. Sixteen years later, it is probably the most popular rose in the United States, if not the world. On the face of it, ‘Knock Out’ … Read more
In this part of the world, we have paid for the recent mild winter with a long, erratically cool spring. Since March first, I think we have had more snow in the forecast—though not on the ground—than we did during the months of November, December and January combined. The daffodils, hyacinths and tulips are made … Read more
