GARDENER’S APPRENTICE #694 VERBENA My plant palate has expanded to include verbena. This is a development that would make any number of my gardening friends laugh, since verbena is a tried and true, “grandmother’s garden” plant. In its latest hybrid incarnations, verbena flaunts its charms from the shelves of every plant retailer in America. … Read more
PLANTS GONE WILD If I were making a garden reality video right now, it would be titled “Plants Gone Wild.” I would film it on location in my upper back garden, a fifteen by twenty foot area that is home to a rose covered arch and a rose-covered pillar, three other rose bushes, several … Read more
LIVINGSTONE DAISY My back porch is large and sunny and has always been the perfect port of call for vacationing indoor plants, not to mention pots of herbs and a few containers of colorful summer-flowering specimens. This year those few pots have swelled into an ocean of flowering annuals, courtesy of my bloom-besotted daughter. … Read more
LAYERS OF MEANING For years I have wondered why I can’t love the ‘Knock Out’ rose. Millions of people sing its praises every day, including some well-known plant pundits. By all accounts it is a stellar garden performer. ‘Knock Out’s confront me at every turn–in private borders and public plantings–but I still can’t warm … Read more
SWEET WILLIAM What do you make of a plant that goes by both “sweet William” and “stinking billy?” The plant in question is Dianthus barbatus, a member of the carnation or Caryophyllaceae family. Gardeners have loved, planted and known the species best as sweet William. I don’t know where the “William” came from, but … Read more
