Walking onto my porch a few months ago, coffee in hand, eyes open to any new surprises my garden might throw at me, I was unprepared for the surprises someone else’s garden might throw at me.  There, where a seventeen foot lilac had towered for the last six years, effectively blocking my view of cars [...]

I almost gave up last week.  It was somewhere between the caryopteris hitting me in the face with a thwack as I tried to move thirteen of them before my blood sugar dropped to record levels, and my son asking me for a sandwich in the middle of the carnage.  As I wiped the dirt [...]

Thanks to Juglans nigra (aka The Eastern Black Walnut), autumn visits my small plot a little ahead of schedule every year.  Early July finds me raking leaves by the basketful; by late August, friends are asking me when I’m planning to have “that dead tree” cut down.   It is my invalid tree, a tree I [...]