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Yesterday I went outside in an attempt to initiate the production of Vitamin D by a body wearied with four walls and space heaters. And not a moment too soon. Coleridge’s “Dejection: An Ode” sat open upon my desk, and I was starting to bypass Christopher Lloyd and a glass of red in [...]

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Just over a year ago at the end of a particularly brutal winter, I made a Scandinurbian sojourn to the holy halls of IKEA to buy some bookcases to line an office wall.  On my way out, weakened by meatballs and lignonberry juice, I fell prey to one of the dirtiest Swedish marketing tricks [...]

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The winds have been unmercifully harsh this winter. Many nights I have lain in bed wondering how long my maple tree can withstand the onslaught of bitter two AM winds, only to find by morning she is still standing, sometimes her long fingers dipped in layers of brilliant ice. The garden is paralyzed right [...]

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“The time has come,” the gardener said, “to talk of many things. Of soil and lights and seedling flats, of cabbages and spring.”

I can hardly believe that February has rolled around and it is time once again to find room for several hundred seedlings, four foot grow lights and filing boxes full of seeds [...]

Yesterday, while leafing through one of those meaty gardening volumes that one reads at this time of year with a large glass of red wine in one hand and a box of tissues in the other, I happened upon the following thought by Dr. Stefan Buczacki, a noted English garden writer, broadcaster and horticulturalist:

“I am [...]

I don’t get back to California very often. When I do, an extended visit of four to five weeks is usually called for in order to adequately serve up willing grandchildren to hungry grandparents and ravenous aunts and uncles. This is of course made possible by the generosity of my husband, who forgoes his chief [...]