Like most couples, my parents compromised on various issues throughout their marriage. One of the most significant centered on flowers. My mother wanted flowers in the house 365 days a year. My father did not want to go broke providing them. The compromise, which took place before I was old enough to know about it, … Read more
Spring is, without a doubt, the busiest time of the gardening year. Everything seems to burst into new life in the same short span of time. Plants grow at exponential rates. Weeds spring up even faster than that, especially onion grass. As if that isn’t bad enough, winter debris lurks everywhere and must be ferreted … Read more
The scenario goes something like this…A child wants a dog. All his friends have dogs and he is the only one without a dog. The child’s busy parents, wary of another long term commitment won’t agree to get a dog. The child chips away at the parents’ resistance until they finally give in—as long as … Read more
This year, some parts of the United States—and elsewhere in the world—were besieged by wildfires of historic proportions. In my part of the world we have been drowning in an abundance of rain, culminating last week in devastating flooding as the end of a hurricane roared through. It made me wish that we could somehow … Read more
Growing up in the wilds of western New York State, crape myrtles were as foreign to me as winters without snow. I had a vague notion that they were nearly as important in the South, as camellias, but even northeastern greenhouses that were chock full of winter-flowering camellias were devoid of crape myrtle. I was … Read more
