I have been swept off my feet by a flashy cat, appropriately named ‘Blue Dreams.’ The cat in question is botanical rather than feline, but it has many feline qualities. Like pedigreed, four-footed cats, ‘Blue Dreams’ has a fancy proper name—Nepeta subsessilis ‘Blue Dreams.’ Its stems arch gracefully, reminiscent of a cat’s back and, like … Read more
TOO MUCH, TOO FAST This is the time of year when the garden is a rampaging torrent of growth. Plants—cultivated and wild—are increasing with reckless abandon, vying with each other in Darwinian attempts to attract as many pollinators as possible. Every day I pull out handfuls of garlic mustard, chickweed, immature pokeweed and other noxious … Read more
In the last two weeks I have gotten used to seeing tall garden phlox in the summer gardens in my neighborhood. This morning I walked farther afield and saw masses of another tall, old-fashioned favorite—cleome or spider flower. The cleome were part of a cottage garden planting scheme and when I saw it from a … Read more
Back in August 1916, a Boston-based beverage producer, the Dwinell-Wright Company, published an illustrated brochure, “Common Wayside Flowers” to promote its White House brands of coffee and tea. Ninety-six years later, my daughter discovered it in a box of postcards at a country antique shop. With the exception of product ads on the inside of … Read more
Back in the beginning of the gardening season, my garden, along with the rest of the Northeast, was inundated with Red Admiral butterflies. Now, as the season begins to winds down, we have a bumper crop of Painted Ladies. Both are colorful, with wings that combine white, black and orange. It is probably better that … Read more
