The blooming lilacs in my garden are a joyful celebration of spring, but also remind me of “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d,” Walt Whitman’s beautiful 1865 elegy to Abraham Lincoln, who was assassinated on April 14 of that year. The first stanza says it all: When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d, And … Read more
Last fall, while most gardeners were putting in tulip bulbs, the spring-flowering shrubs were quietly going about the annual business of producing the buds from which long-awaited flowers will begin sprouting about a month from now. While we shivered through the winter thinking that the snow-covered branches were asleep, they were, in fact, readying themselves … Read more
