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
Hostas are so reliable, easy to grow and useful that they have become ubiquitous. If they weren’t beloved by slugs and deer, they would probably be the most popular plants in the world. I use them in my garden, but I frequently take them for granted. The leaves–plain or variegated; large or small; apple … Read more
THE COPELAND CLAN I love garden catalogs, which is a good thing because I get scores of them every year. Some of the most interesting are specialty catalogs dedicated to a single genus like tomatoes or roses or African violets. It amazes me to think that I could plant my entire garden–or at … Read more
PARROTS For years I worshipped at the shrine of the lily flowering tulip. Tall, slim and elegant, the lily flowering tulip is everything I aspire to and is also closest in appearance to the wild tulips that got the world started on its long love affair with these spring flowering plants. For years I … Read more
