The Gardener's Apprentice

DIGGING UP TROUBLES             Not long ago, I had a day that came laden with at least a month’s quota of vexatious people and situations.  After eight hours of querulous callers, enervating e-mailers and bureaucratic snafus, I felt like Hamlet when he said, “How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses … Read more

GETTING PHYSICAL IN THE GARDEN             Three seasons a year, nurseries are full of “easy care” plants.  Garden and shelter publications routinely trumpet the virtues of these green wonders, which, if you believe the write-ups, do everything except dig holes and install themselves.  In the American nursery business, the trend over the last decade has … Read more

EVICTING THE ROSE             I am not very good at ending relationships–even with inanimate objects.  My cellar is full of gadgets with which I once had a passionate involvement.  Years may have gone by since the last encounter, but I still find it difficult to get them out of my life and off my premises.  … Read more

CAROLINA SILVERBELL                 An old Greek proverb says, “A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.”  With the heavy, rocky soil the way it is around here, many old men would be hard pressed to dig a hole big enough to plant a tree.  However, … Read more