Last week I participated in an annual ritual of spring that involved a lengthy pilgrimage, followed by acts of homage at impressive shrines in the company of hundreds of other pilgrims. At the end of my journey, I returned home footsore, but spiritually renewed. The scene of this religious devotion was, of course, the Philadelphia … Read more
Lots of plants pop up in the fertile ground under my privet hedge—poison ivy, Virginia creeper, wild grape, Japanese honeysuckle, Oriental bittersweet and common mulberry, to name a few. I spend a good chunk of time every month battling them. It is a quixotic battle, based on the romantic notion that I can actually defeat … Read more
Bleeding heart—Lamprocapnos spectabilis–has shed seeds, if not blood, all over my garden. I probably planted the first one deliberately ten years ago, though I have no memory of doing so. Now, they are everywhere. Normally those words would constitute the start of a rant about garden thuggery. In this case, however, I have no complaint. … Read more
There was a time when I had no asters in my front garden. Then I planted one small pot of tall, pink-flowered ‘Alma Potschke’ asters. ‘Alma’ prospered—so much so that now, if I didn’t pull out the seedlings every year, I would have hundreds of ‘Alma Potschke’offspring. Not only do I pull out the seedlings, … Read more
Last week I saw a one-gallon container of old-fashioned double columbines at my neighborhood big box store. This is a sure sign that columbine—aquilegia to horticulturists—has arrived in a big way. The plants, generally short-lived perennials, have been spring harbingers in the Old and New Worlds for centuries. Now they are suddenly as à la … Read more
