I know lots of people who make great use of either noise blocking headphones or devices that feed music, books or other forms of audio input directly into their brains via earbuds. There are many benefits to both—from blocking out all the extraneous noises that the modern world generates, to, in the case of audio … Read more
Today I made a foray into the semi-snowy wasteland that is my back garden to see if I could find any hellebore buds. Recent snowfall has covered the big Christmas rose—Helleborus niger—with a white blanket. I scratched through it, but no buds have had the courage to pop out yet. Next week, after a few … Read more
The snow is finally melting in my part of the world, after an intensely hyped “blizzard” ten days ago. Gardeners are emerging from their lairs and approaching their beds, borders and overwintered containers with low expectations. After an “open” winter, with fairly reasonable temperatures and almost no snow, we were hit with a series of … Read more
If I were to succeed in the nefarious scheme of annexing my neighbor’s property, I would immediately create a garden room devoted to peonies of all sorts. In my mind’s eye, the scene unfolds, with hundreds of garden peonies, otherwise known as Paeonia lactiflora, in bloom. Tree peonies—Paeonia suffuticosa–would abound. Intersectional types, a marriage of … Read more
