One of the sad realities of my suburban life is that lawn grass grows best in a single segment of my property—the garden beds. The green blades struggle in the backyard, perpetual losers in the never-ending competition with ajuga, clover, wild violets and broadleaf weeds. The grass issue in back is exacerbated by the fact … Read more
For millennia gardens and gardening have been used as metaphors for life. English author Edith Pargeter, who wrote under the name Ellis Peters, created a many-volume series from that metaphor when she wrote her Brother Cadfael mystery books. Her sleuth/protagonist, Cadfael, tended his herb garden in the same intelligent, methodical and patient way that he … Read more
I am rereading The Morville Hours, a marvelous book, published in 2010 by English garden writer, Katherine Swift. The author, a scholar/gardener and former librarian at Trinity College, Dublin, describes the twenty-year process of creating an amazing garden on a National Trust property in Shropshire. The book juxtaposes the details of garden making with the … Read more
If a garden does not look good in May and June, it will never look good. I have heard that particular aphorism at least a thousand times over the years. Theoretically, at least, it’s true for many gardens. If your landscape is home to a lot of spring-flowering plants of the flashy variety—roses, peonies, iris … Read more
WEEDS EVERYWHERE This year our area has had a long, cool spring. As the result, the spring flowers have lingered. Plants that don’t usually flower at the same time are blooming simultaneously, giving the entire area the appearance of one big flower show. The last of the magnolias are colliding with the lilacs. Pansies … Read more
