These days plant dealers need specimens that do the following things: look good ninety-eight percent of the time; provide reliable color or interest; perform in part shade; flourish in gardens or containers and require very little care. Breeders have slaved over certain perennial plant genera, including heuchera, tiarella and brunnera, in an effort to produce … Read more
Europeans have always been crazy about hedges. In England they are practically a religion. We Americans, with our love of wide open spaces and vast suburban lawns, have generally been less hedge-crazy. It isn’t that we don’t like shrubs. In the twentieth century we have used everything from salix to sand cherry to conceal the … Read more
I love it when my nears and dears give me garden-related gifts during the holidays. Any kind of plant is welcome, especially flowering ones. Gardening gifts are sometimes a little more problematic, because I am not a gadget person. That said, some of the best gifts have been very basic. Long ago, I received a … Read more
So often in botanical circles plants with lovely common names, like shooting stars or Peruvian lilies, have absolutely awful-sounding botanical names. Cape primrose is a case in point. Botanically speaking, it is known as Streptocarpus, which sounds dangerously close to streptococcus, the bacteria that causes strep throat. Some streptocarpus is so beautiful that it will … Read more
The front cover of Hugh Cavendish’s new book, A Time to Plant, looks like an abstract painting in shades of olive green, tan and rust. It is, in fact, a close-up of the exfoliating bark of a stewartia tree. The tree in question is part of a collection of stewartias at Holker Hall, the Cavendish … Read more
