CHRISTMAS ROSE If you aspire to be fashionable in the world of horticulture, you must have hellebores. This year’s catalogs have more of them than last year’s, and last year’s had more of them than the catalogs that came out two years ago. The hellebore hybridizers and merchandisers have been very, very busy. … Read more
MISS WILLMOTT’S GHOST Every gardener has an inner Ellen Willmott. An Englishwoman born into wealth in 1858, she was bitten early and hard by the gardening bug. In her prime she gardened, read, studied, patronized fabled plant hunters and employed hundreds of gardeners to tend her plants. She eventually lavished so much money on … Read more
A SUCCESSFUL YEAR The summer of 2007 was the year of the garden imperative, as I worked nearly every day to get my garden ready for a mid-summer wedding and a late summer garden tour. The summer of 2008 had no such imperative, but in some ways it was even better. Results took a … Read more
LONGWOOD CHRISTMAS Sometimes you just have to get out of town. This is especially true when the skies, the landscape and the economy are all equally gray. Last week I felt as if I were stranded on an island in a sea of grayness. I decided that the only remedy for the situation was … Read more
RETURNING LIGHT As a gardener my life has always been defined by the seasons. Every year at this time I feel hope rise as I count down the days to the Winter Solstice. Of course, December twenty-second has only a tiny amount more daylight than December twenty-first, but I know that every day afterwards … Read more
