Writing this during the May’s closing days, after winter’s final hurrah (I hope, but this is Colorado and it’s a bit dodgy to count on it), my neighbors and I have been digging out dandelions in the faint hope of eliminating them from our lawns and gardens. It would be nice if the flowers were, […]
It all depends how you look at it. Is your garden a demanding diva, that requires the constant attentions of the stylist, the groomer, the maid-of-all-work to keep the whole shebang tidy? Or is just plain fun to be with? A place that makes you laugh, mostly at mistakes that, to your eye, turn out […]
Having a wide-ranging collection of gardening books amassed over the decades of my writing career often provides me with ideas for this column and always gives me a lift when gardening gets tough. In those moments, my library reminds me that whatever the problem/pleasure/trend is in the world of the garden, it has all been […]
“If the last month was so severe that little work could be done in the garden, there will be a necessity for forwarding business in this, provided the season be favorable.” Thus wrote Phillip Miller, in his 1775 edition of the Gardener’s Kalendar, setting out the “work to be done” in every part of the […]
Winters in the southwest are at best variable to say the least. It may be the cold season, but weeks of warm, spring-like warm weather can’t fool us, we know it suddenly change overnight to unseemly arctic conditions. That’s the moment we gardeners swap the spade for a snow shovel, or possibly a broom since […]
As the year draws to a close, we garden writers begin receiving notices about the fresh trends for the garden in the coming year. The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society’s list of all that is new for the New Year arrived yesterday. For nearly 200 years the PHS, as it is commonly known, shared its top 10 […]
Before you put this little book away Please promise me that will never say: “You should have seen my garden yesterday.” It’s been my good fortune to visit a great many gardens in my career as an author of books about garden design, history and, well, gardening in general. In so doing, I have also […]
Silly gardener! Summer goes, And winter comes with pinching toes, When in the garden bare and brown You must lay your barrow down. So wrote Robert Louis Stevenson in A Child’s Garden of Verses, where youth (the child) admonishes an older person (the gardener) to lay aside their chores and woes, and play while the […]
“This morning, when I went to look at my flowers…I saw again in my mind all the blossoms in the woods, the fields, the gardens, the orangeries and the green-houses; and I thought of all that we owe to world of marvels which the bees visit.” Maurice Maeterlinck, 1909. Not just the bees, I hasten […]
What can be more magical than a full moon on a summer evening? That great silvery orb peeping out behind drifting clouds or rising regally into a clear sky twinkling with diamonds. Makes one wax lyrical. Sitting out in the garden on such a night could be called moon-bathing, and provide an opportunity to enjoy […]
It’s that time of year again. The umpteenth generation of house finches is leaving the nest, one by one, encouraged by their parents to fly the coop; it’s getting crowded in the Mexican tin lantern that is the couple’s poquito ranchito. It’s a wonderful thing to witness as each baby bird gains confidence and control […]
Considering all of humanity’s endeavors for which clever workarounds have been invented…like “smart” phones, thermostats, search engines, algorithms, whatever we can open with the touch of fingertips on keyboards, I feel justified in thinking of gardening as the last hands-on enterprise left to us. Okay, I exaggerate, but just a tiny bit. Think about it: […]
