I have always told people that there are no headaches in the garden. There are also no social faux pas, ranting politicians or demanding bosses. Some people, of course, bring those things into the garden because they refuse to be parted from their electronic devices. I try to avoid co-mingling of digging and devices because … Read more
Not long ago I gave a garden talk at the monthly meeting of a wonderful local garden club. They were, like so many passionate gardeners, warm and friendly and devoted to many aspects of horticulture—ecology, hands-on gardening and growing and showing flowers to perfection. It was heady company. The members work as horticulture volunteers at … Read more
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
