Every five or ten years the horticultural world goes through a vogue for patterned leaves. Everything old is new again as gardeners snap up some of the flashier hostas, variegated weigelas, Japanese painted ferns and all manner of plants with splotched, splashed and marbled leaves. Breeders pump out even more of them to meet the … Read more
Lewisias are beautiful plants that I include, along with ornamental sweet peas, in my litany of horticultural failure. A few years ago, I was smitten by a lovely little pink-flowered lewisia that I saw at a plant sale. I thought I understood its needs, so I brought it home and planted it in a reasonably … Read more
I last thought seriously about Geranium phaeum, aka “the mourning widow,” about six years ago. I was in the first throes of a serious love affair with all kinds of hardy geraniums and was swept off my feet by the phaeum species, because it thrives so well in shade. I bought one and it died, … Read more
The daisy or Compositae family is so large—950 genera, 20,000 species and even more cultivated varieties and hybrids—that you could fill hundreds of gardens with family members without even thinking about plants from outside the clan. Over the last three decades or so, individual daisy genera, including coneflower, asters, Shasta daisies and blanketflower, have caught … Read more
Unless you are a teenager, it is generally a good thing to be “grounded.” For non-teens, the word implies common sense and a focus on reality, as opposed to flights of fantasy. People who are grounded are reliable—the kind you want as friends or neighbors. The kind you rarely get as relatives. More and more … Read more
