KNOTTY PROBLEM The other day I was looking at a print that resembled a Delft tile. The focal point was a quatrefoil enclosing a vase of stylized flowers. The symmetry, flowers and unbroken outline reminded me of a knot garden, a form of planting I have admired for years. Now that the gardening season … Read more
REGAL LILIES I have a friend who grows exquisite trumpet lilies. It goes without saying that she has a green thumb, but she also has a raised, south-facing bed with perfect drainage. There are no deer in her area to eat the plants, so they don’t have to be fenced or sprayed with noxious … Read more
BULBS Planting something that will sit in the frozen ground for months before bursting into glorious flower seems like an even greater act of faith than sowing seeds in the spring. Still, most gardeners feel compelled to install bulbs anyway; sometimes continuing for years after the threat of aching backs and creaky knees … Read more
SEASONAL SUCCESS We had a rainy growing season in much of the northeast this past spring and summer and I have heard a lot of garden horror stories about blighted tomatoes, drowned roses and the epidemic of fungal diseases. I’ve told a lot of those stories myself and my fellow gardeners are almost always … Read more
MONTAUK DAISIES I feel sorry for the Montauk daisy. It has a difficult Latin name, Nipponanthemum nipponicum, which means, literally, “the Japanese flower from Japan.” Before acquiring that mouthful of a name, it wore the slightly simpler Latin moniker, Chrysanthemum nipponicum, which means “the golden flower from Japan.” Obviously taxonomists felt that since only … Read more
