There are some tunes that stick in your head, sometimes for weeks. That happened to me recently with the old sea chantey, “What do we do with a drunken sailor?” The song isn’t as common as it was a generation or two ago, possibly owing to its bawdy lyrics, but is still widely known. The … Read more
There are two kinds of guilt—guilt for things done and guilt for things left undone. Most people suffer from one or the other, or both, from time to time. Some of us, especially those who have either had mothers and/or been mothers, are masters at the art of guilt, whether we lay it on … Read more
TOO MUCH, TOO FAST This is the time of year when the garden is a rampaging torrent of growth. Plants—cultivated and wild—are increasing with reckless abandon, vying with each other in Darwinian attempts to attract as many pollinators as possible. Every day I pull out handfuls of garlic mustard, chickweed, immature pokeweed and other noxious … Read more
Recently a friend invoked the wrath of the Garden Gods. While trimming the winter-worn leaves of her hellebores, she came to a patch of the wonderful Eric Smith hybrid—Helleborus x ericsmithii. These hellebores don’t generally need trimming, because their beautifully marbled foliage remains good-looking right through the winter. Sometimes, however, all those lush green leaves … Read more
