SILVER AND GOLD Last week I wrote about visiting the gardens at a designer show house and being struck by the number of chartreuse or golden-leafed plants used to lighten up dark spaces. I have been thinking about it ever since, and noticing such plants everywhere I go. Another great landscape lightener is silver or … Read more
THE HOLDING AREA The time has come to empty out the plant holding area. It’s the end of summer and some of the plants have been hanging on valiantly since the spring, waiting for their turn in the soil. I have watered them, trimmed them and felt extremely guilty about them. In fact, I … Read more
VERBASCUM I am now the proud owner of a Verbascum phoenicium or purple mullein. It’s quite a statuesque individual, with basal clusters of eight inch-long leaves that look like lettuce or spinach. The flower stalk is about three feet tall and completely covered with tiny white flowers whose petals shade to purple at the … Read more
RUNAWAY WISTERIA Many years ago, a well-meaning gardener planted wisteria on the lot next door. She probably intended for it to adorn the arch that sits on the property line. She may have thought the long, purple, pea-like flower bunches would look lovely spiraling along the old wire cemetery fencing that flanked the arch. … Read more
DIGGING UP TROUBLES Not long ago, I had a day that came laden with at least a month’s quota of vexatious people and situations. After eight hours of querulous callers, enervating e-mailers and bureaucratic snafus, I felt like Hamlet when he said, “How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses … Read more
