THE TROUBLE WITH TULIPS Several friends who were more diligent than I about ordering their spring-flowering bulbs have already received their bulb shipments. I await mine, which should arrive any day now. Once again this year I have made every effort to order enough tulips for a stunning floral display next April. I know … Read more
I have started the great cut-back. The scores of tall aster ‘Alma Potschke’ have mostly finished their dramatic run of pink and purple fireworks and now stand ready to reseed themselves everywhere. Birds will take some of that seed, but if I don’t get ‘Alma’ under control, I will have lots of grubbing out to … Read more
Bulb planting in my garden is always a race against time. I invariably order more bulbs than I can reasonably expect to put in the ground and get hit by a spell of frantic activity about the time the bulb boxes arrive. The bulbs necessarily languish in a cool place for a few weeks, while … Read more
When it comes to gardening, there is one constant in my life—I never buy enough tulips. I don’t think animals eat or move most of them, nor do my bulbs have an uncommonly low success rate. It is just that the bag of bulbs that seems so large in the fall when I am digging … Read more
It is time now to get down to the serious business of buying bulbs. Summer is ebbing away, the Monarch butterflies are massing for their epic flight to warmer climes, and the stores have already had their Halloween displays out for a month. The bulb catalogs hit the doorsteps in August and the garden centers … Read more
