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Thomas Jefferson's magnificent Virginia estate

On a trip to Monticello in the middle of last year’s brutal summer, a friend and I wandered through a lush and verdant vegetable garden, unable to believe the scene which greeted us.  Seemingly impervious to drought and unrelenting heat, the garden breathed health, vitality, and a supernatural resistance [...]

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Most of the work I do inside my home is reversible. My unending tasks are those that most certainly need to be done, but those that spend more time undone than done. Scrub a sink and it is instantly stained. Sweep a floor and it is soiled. Make a meal and it is eaten. [...]

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At one time or another in our lives, most of us find ourselves in a position where a big garden, or even a small one, is not feasible.  Maybe we live in an upstairs apartment, or in a condominium, or in the basement of our parents’ home; and an open window and a stiff [...]

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Music makes all things better – or at least that’s what the founders of iTunes and Napster say.

I am in complete agreement. Having weeded perennial borders to the tune of my neighbors arguing, and pruned wisteria to the sweet strains of ‘Del Tha Funkee Homosapien’ coming from someone else’s driveway, it has occurred to [...]

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We all have tasks that we avoid until the last possible minute – tasks that, had we the money, we would never do again. Within my four walls, bathroom cleaning tops the list, followed in rapid succession by paying bills and clipping the nails of a reticent Labrador.

Things are no different in the garden, [...]

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May is here, and once she steps onto the scene, resplendent in dazzling dresses of yellows and greens, our eyes – so dimmed by winter’s punishments – first brighten, then glaze over again; and we walk straight to the nearest horticultural vendor like lambs to the slaughter.  We hand over pieces of plastic [...]