The tender plants are in, the beds are mulched and the leaves have fallen. November is never an exciting month in the gardening calendar, filled as it is with so many to-dos and so few ta-das. I find my enthusiasm lessened somewhat by the cold, and the dreariness of a grey sky, yet coming indoors [...]
Once again, I am hearing myself say the words, "I don't ever think I've seen a fall so beautiful." It is not true of course – I have said this too many times during our years on the East Coast to be right this year. And yet I feel justified once again in [...]
A blue-bottle tree echoes the fall plumes of a neighboring miscanthus Sometimes it's good to get your head out of your own garden and see if there is anything greener on the other side of the fence. If you do so at this time of year, you will no doubt start [...]
With the exception of three lovely evenings at yoga, it has been six months since I charged up my mp3 and headed off to the gym for an hour's endorphin rush. Sure I've kept active in the garden, and the warm weather inspires a few more walks with attached dogs than does bitter [...]
Listen/Download Article When you have a small garden and you are trying to make it sparkle for more than the oh-so-brief month of May, it is necessary to blend a thoughtful assortment of annual, biennial and perennial plants that can pull double and even triple shifts with flowers and/or foliage well into November. [...]
Listen/Download Article A week ago I was leisurely wandering with a friend through his garden when I spied the familiar burnt orange of leaf blotch discoloring what could only be a large horse chestnut tree (Aesculus hippocastanum) near his drive. I was surprised to see the tree in such a dry, rural Californian setting and [...]
Listen/Download Article Things are moving quickly in the garden once again. However it is not new growth of which I speak, nor the rustle of birds frantically throwing together nests in the spirea. We have reaped that particular whirlwind and now stand on the other side of our garden season – watching the rapid decay [...]
Listen/Download Article Most of us have been instructed from an early age to keep our hands and our mouths away from fruiting fungi. We may be happy to nibble on a bit of wild sorrel, or taste the pungent acidity of a dandelion, but the minute we are faced with a large, beautiful [...]
Listen/Download Article It’s difficult to inspire plants to perform. As a rule, they don’t respond well to sweet nothings, obnoxious shouting is ignored, and begging is right out. At the end of the day it comes down to an adequate supply of water and nutrients, lack of disease and pests….oh and one other trifling detail [...]
Listen/Download Article It is true, as the late Christopher Lloyd once said, that there shouldn’t be too many vested interests in a garden. Invariably, tastes cross, words are exchanged and dirt is thrown. I have rarely seen a couple equally driving the feel and scope of a garden – one gardener always has his or [...]
Listen/Download Article It is not an exaggeration to say that the amateur gardener, if not marveling over vegetable beds, is most often focused on the size, shape, color and duration of flowers. Unless you’ve had a flashy designer come in and introduce you to the wonderful world of foliage over a particularly painful check-writing session, [...]
When I was a little girl, the Fair was an event to be savored. It seemed as if there were a hundred buildings to traverse, a million exhibits to peruse and a thousand rides to enjoy – and hardly enough time to do any of it and still wangle a stick of cotton [...]
Listen/Download Article The fall garden. Ahhhhhh. No matter how cruel the summer, how dry and hot and humid, nature invites us back outside again now to remember why we garden; why we go crazy over catalogs in January and nurseries in April – for the chance to reconnect to the sights and smells and pleasures [...]
Clean up your room!” Four of the most overworked words in my home. No excuses are accepted, no bribes received. Yet of course, if positions were reversed, and my children happened to glance out of the window at the flower border and the vegetable garden and the back lawn, they might be tempted to utter [...]
The lines between town life and country life are often blurry in England. Large cities like London or Birmingham excluded, to some degree town life is country life, and those who live and work in the small villages that dot the green and verdant land of that little island often do not feel as if [...]
