The blooming lilacs in my garden are a joyful celebration of spring, but also remind me of “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d,” Walt Whitman’s beautiful 1865 elegy to Abraham Lincoln, who was assassinated on April 14 of that year. The first stanza says it all: When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d, And … Read more
I love etymology, the study of word origins. That is partly why I am intrigued by weigela, a gorgeous flowering shrub that is having its moment of glory just now, in mid to late May. Weigela is part of the larger honeysuckle plant family, known botanically as Caprifoliaceae. If you are into astrology, you know … Read more
Winter has temporarily abated, with temperatures consistently above freezing and even jumping into spring-like territory. The weekend looks promising. It is past time for me to prune the flowering quince. That sounds like a perfectly reasonable thing to do, and it would be, except for one small detail—the flowering quince, or Chaenomeles speciosa, is armed … Read more
