Count on January to deliver uncertain winter weather, post-holiday doldrums and the bills for December extravagance. It also brings the moment gardeners have been waiting for—a chance to sit down with catalogs and websites and plan for the coming growing season. Snow days were meant for wallowing in horticultural daydreams, spending unlimited imaginary money, and … Read more
The other day I was out for a walk in my neighborhood when I saw a pair of goldfinches flitting through a bed of blue cornflowers. Backlit by the summer sun, the male goldfinch was clad in his bright yellow courting dress and the cornflowers were an especially vivid shade of cerulean blue. The picture … Read more
I have a friend who is fond of saying, “the devil is in the details,” and she is right. Ambitious plans have come to a screeching halt because someone forgot the AAA batteries. Failure to tighten a strategically placed button can cause an embarrassing wardrobe malfunction. Most of us could make up our own lists … Read more
At this time of the year I am reminded of the old Protestant hymn, “Bringing in the Sheaves.” It celebrates the celestial and actual harvest with a refrain that goes: “Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves;…” The “sheaves” I will bring in later today are … Read more
Doris Duke—1912-1993—was a millionaire heiress with multiple homes, a colorful personal life and a peripatetic nature. Whenever she touched down in New Jersey, she came to rest at Duke Farms, a property established by her father in the state’s central region. In Duke’s time, the mammoth greenhouses at Duke Farms contained a series of themed … Read more
