The selling of souls is serious business; just ask the poets and playwrights who have explored that theme over the centuries. Gardeners generally have little time for such existential considerations, because they are busy weeding, watering and doing other garden chores. But every once in awhile, a plant comes along that is so alluring, it … Read more
Not all of us are adept at garden design and only some of us can afford professional help. What can we do to get beauty in our landscapes at a cost that still allows us to buy plants? Of course there are numerous internet sites, software programs, and other web-based means of finding garden plans … Read more
Winter has temporarily abated, with temperatures consistently above freezing and even jumping into spring-like territory. The weekend looks promising. It is past time for me to prune the flowering quince. That sounds like a perfectly reasonable thing to do, and it would be, except for one small detail—the flowering quince, or Chaenomeles speciosa, is armed … Read more
I am a student of gardening history, especially in the winter, when actual gardening activities are necessarily limited. Sometimes in my reading, catalog perusal and other armchair activities, certain tantalizing figures pop up repeatedly. This happened recently with Lady Beatrix Stanley, whom I found waltzing across the pages of a snowdrop catalog, dancing through listings … Read more
We all make New Year’s resolutions. By now, with winter’s gray days weighing heavily upon us, many have already been broken. But gardening resolutions are different. Those of us in cold winter climates haven’t had the chance to break any resolutions yet, because those resolutions depend on our ability to break the frozen ground. We … Read more
