Italian writer Andrea di Robilant has long been a man in search of the past. He mined a rich vein of family history in Lucia: A Venetian Life in the Age of Napoleon, the 2008 biography of his ancestor Lucia Mocenigo, a late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Venetian aristocrat and friend of the French … Read more
At the end of the garden season, I cling to my roses, at least figuratively. Even as night temperatures begin to dip and the geraniums on the porch shiver, I deadhead the roses to keep them producing flower buds. No one knows if the weather will cooperate long enough to bring those buds to bloom, … Read more
Roses have been around for about thirty-five million years, give or take a few million. Homo sapiens came on the scene about two hundred thousand years ago. The human love affair with roses most likely started whenever the two came together for the first time. It has been going strong ever since. Humans seem hard-wired … Read more
Rose breeders are always looking for something new—blue roses, continuous bloomers, roses that flower in the shade and plants that are absolutely impervious to climate change, pests and diseases. This has been going on for centuries, but in an era when breeding advances can be communicated around the world in an instant, the hunt for … Read more
A big storm is coming, though, by all rights, the gusts of hyperbole from the media should be enough to blow it out to sea. However, just in case it is as great and terrible as predicted, I have spent the day bringing geraniums indoors and putting away all the garden ornaments. Even the bagged-up … Read more
