As they say in the movies, “We have a situation.” The situation in question is on the south side of my house, which is dark, dank and completely lacking in charm. I don’t like it and neither do the plants that live there. It has to be rectified. The relatively narrow area between the side … Read more
Cleaning up an overgrown garden is a little like a soap opera, complete with births, deaths, ambitious characters, opportunists, odd match-ups and thuggish intruders. As a gardener, you act as director and editor, generally simplifying the plot line, cleaning up messy situations, and making the whole more coherent. I did this recently with a garden … Read more
Nineteenth century poets, like John Keats, were fond of odes. Keats is particularly famous for a relatively short one extolling the beauty of a Grecian urn, and a longer one about a nightingale. If only he had lived long enough to be introduced to the sturdy garden fork that hangs in silence on my garage … Read more
Spring is, without a doubt, the busiest time of the gardening year. Everything seems to burst into new life in the same short span of time. Plants grow at exponential rates. Weeds spring up even faster than that, especially onion grass. As if that isn’t bad enough, winter debris lurks everywhere and must be ferreted … Read more
In his novel, An International Episode, author Henry James says, “Summer afternoon—summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.” I agree with him, but the flip side of that quote might be something like, “Rainy weekend, rainy weekend; to me those have always been the … Read more
