You may not have noticed, but gauras have exploded in a big way. This mass detonation has taken place over the last two decades, and while the world at large may have perceived it as white noise, it resounded in horticultural circles. Gaura lindheimeri, a perennial also known as Lindheimer’s beeblossom, wandflower, or just plain … Read more
Someday I will write a garden book and the title will be My Garden in Twenty-Five Mistakes. Each chapter will detail one of my particularly egregious garden mistakes and the steps I took to rectify it. My book will be the perfect antidote to all those garden books that detail how the garden owner inherited … Read more
I love to walk—in my neighborhood, my town and wherever I vacation. I never wear headphones or talk on my phone, because I like to save my senses for the small worlds that I encounter on my way. Good suburbanite that I am, I always take stock of the neighbors’ gardens. But I am also … Read more
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
When I was on vacation in August, I saw the most inspiring bioswale I have ever seen. Some people may ask, “What on earth is a bioswale?” The answer is simple. A bioswale is a more sophisticated and ecologically sound version of a drainage ditch. Bioswales are designed to hold, channel and sometimes filter the … Read more
