Recently, I was fortunate to participate in a panel discussion about eating well on a tight budget. Though I love good, wholesome food and beautiful things, I am, and have always been, a self-proclaimed cheapskate. Compliment me on my brushed camel coat and a demure smile is the last thing to settle upon [...]
The autumn show-stopper, A. hubrectii backed by viburnum and thuja The maples and oaks began to blush red in the woodlands last week, following hot on the heels of the tulip poplars and hickory that populate our hillsides and dominate the color scheme with rust and gold. With this final act, [...]
Laetiporus sulphureus My mind is not on my work at this time of year. Though conscience dictates that I should be digging holes for the last of the leaf-spattered pots to go in the ground, I am taking every opportunity instead to play hooky. Mother Nature has laid for us the [...]
Plants suffer at the hands of well-meaning gardeners every day, but no plant suffers greater than a plant which a gardener knows will accept harsh treatment and survive. These are the plants determined to cling on to life long after most would have given up the fight and limped the long green mile [...]
And on the pedestal, these words appear: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away." _________________________________________ It is the time of year when, exhausted by my garden, [...]
The topic of backyard chickens has reared its feathered head again, causing a spate of ruffled feathers and poor puns throughout local newspapers. It has been over five years since we fought and lost this particular battle in Brunswick. Situated as I am now, comfortably out of city limits and ever more comfortably outside the [...]
Thanks to the internet, if you are a beginner gardener you can ask everything from "What is a seed?" to "What does soil do?" and rest easy in the knowledge that the only people aware of your ignorance are yourself and the CIA. Perhaps you don't know an annual from a perennial, a [...]
Never has a topic been so thoroughly explored and exhausted as that of the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug infestation that has plagued the East Coast for several years. I use the word 'exhausted' very deliberately. One grows bone-weary of reading articles filled with half-truths and empty promises regarding physical or chemical control; and [...]
Pepper the house cat on a rare foray in the garden. A barn cat is a feral thing. A spitting, skittish ball of fur, happy to lay in the sun but happier when you resist the urge to bend down and pet it. Or at least that's what I imagined. Someone forgot to [...]
In Montgomery County, Maryland, it is now estimated that the deer population is hovering near 100 head per acre. It's enough to make decent gardeners tear up their landscaping in despair and put down gravel and plastic flowers. Not that it will work. A friend of mine in Germantown moved his deciduous hollies [...]
The little guy who started it all: H. niger 'HGC Jacob' - Photo courtesy of John Willis Photography Three seasons in a garden and we all need a rest, but no sooner had I written the words, "It is finished" in a recent article than I was sent an e-mail from [...]
I was asked by a friend if I would republish this column for Thanksgiving day as a gentle reminder of what we give up when we turn on our phones around the dinner table. There are moments in life when we are stimulated by conversation, and other moments not so much; but by turning our [...]
A marriage is often tested to its extreme limits by the sad fact that those things precious to one person are not always precious to the other. In the early years of my marriage I boxed up my husband's life (pre-me) with the ruthlessness and efficiency of a paid-by-the-hour home organizer. I particularly remember a [...]
Courtesy of Dan Weil Photography I am having to content myself with other people's gardens right now – having moved house directly in the middle of the growing season. When gardening friends feign horror at the leaving of a burgeoning garden in mid-May, I must gently remind them that interest rates [...]
It is always challenging at this time of year to act as head cheerleader for the garden. I am not immune to triple-digit heat indexes any more than the next guy, so how do I have the effrontery to wave my pom-poms and say "get out there"? Well, first of all, I'm not [...]
Larkspur seedlings rapidly going from "wanted" to "weed" At any given time in the garden, seeds are germinating at an alarming rate, but how to choose between those you want and those you despise? Experience informs much of the decision making process when one is down on one's knees, trowel in [...]
Temperatures have soared, and with them, my enthusiasm. I may be in the garden a bit more frequently than your average dirt-hound, but that doesn't make me a glutton for punishment. I welcome warmer temperatures, which spark creative thought and motivate me to work on things I haven't wished to contemplate for several [...]
Euphorbia x martinii "Ascot Rainbow" in conversation with a diminutive tête-à-tête narcissus The whole, as we say, is often greater than the sum of its parts. So true in the garden this spring, as I watch bulbs that have for years come up drearily in the same place only to take on more [...]
There is a tendency in human beings to rush into the garden as soon as the temperatures warm and, with nothing but the best of intentions, wreak all means of havoc. Soil is overturned, whether soupy or solid, perennial clumps are unceremoniously divided and tossed into crypt-like holes, and spring bloomers are given [...]
