As I write this in the days before Thanksgiving, snow is falling steadily in the Rockies. It was 60 degrees yesterday, so I had an energetic day, washing windows (the better to see the snow!) and hauling the lawn furniture indoors. In these days of indoor/outdoor blurring, where the conservatory is another room of the […]
Stained glass windows have been around a good deal longer than conservatories, yet it would seem that the two have something to offer each other. Wafting around the National Botanic Garden of Ireland in September, I was fulfilling a bucket list item; I’d long known about but never visited the graceful Curvilinear Range and its […]
Phillip Johnson’s “Glasshouse” in New Haven, Connecticut, is one of the icons of mid-century modern architecture. Steel-framed and glass-walled (hence its popular name) it seamlessly blends indoors and outdoors. It’s sophisticated simplicity has been the pattern for much early-21st century design. The photograph below, from my book, The Midcentury Modern Landscape, shows a Johnson-inspired modernist […]
Mulch: the magic M-word that every gardener should know and practice, in the garden and even in the conservatory. Why mulch? Some may think that mulch is just cosmetic, improving the looks of a garden. That it does, but it’s main attraction is far more complex—and interactive set of attributes that keep the garden looking […]
“Mighty oaks from little acorns grow” is an old adage loaded with meaning, but one with special significance, I think, for us gardeners, knowing as we do that every garden begins with a seed. Seed can be “seed money” that lets us purchase a plot of land or rent space in a community garden. Seed […]
Who watched the Royal Wedding? Who felt a tear in their eye as we learned that Meghan Markle’s simple-bunch bouquet contained flowers that were favorites of Princess Diana, picked – and here’s the kicker – in the castle garden by Prince Harry? Now that is saying something! Flowers have long had all sorts of symbolic […]
Gardening in the steppes of Colorado and the Rocky Mountain region is a constantly rising learning curve. I dream of a garden-enclosing greenhouse along the lines of the Eden Project, or maybe a dome like the one at the fabulously revived Des Moines Botanical Center. May has been a particularly trying month, with an endless […]
A conservatory or greenhouse can be a heavenly – and heavily – scented environment when crammed full with perfumed flowers like jasmine, citrus, and countless other plants that hold fragrance in their petals and foliage. Pot pourri is an amalgam of plant parts preserved by drying and blending that will conserve the scent of garden […]
<em><a href=”https://www.amazon.com/Midcentury-Modern-Landscape-Ethne-Clarke/dp/1423645804″>The Mid-Century Modern Landscape</a></em> is the title of my recent book. It’s rather misleading because it’s about gardens: I’m old school and I think of landscape as the natural surroundings in which we build or shape our dreams: The Parthenon is set in a dramatic landscape; my greenhouse is part of my garden. Oh, […]
High elevations and low waterfall mean gardening in the southwest depends a lot on what you might call “mechanical intervention”; glasshouses and tunnels for season extension and irrigation to compensate for shortages are the chief tools at the gardener’s disposal. Developed by the ancient Romans, adapted by the Moors in pre-Christian Spain, aqueducts fed water […]
Mandevilla is a genus of flowering vines with showy, trumpet-shaped blossoms in various vibrant colors, making them highly popular for patios and decks. In cold climates, however, they must be brought indoors for winter. Fortunately, a greenhouse is an ideal winter haven for Mandevillas as long as the temperature there stays above 50˚F. Before bringing […]
Pomegranate, Punica granatum, is a small tree native to the Mediterranean reaches of the near east, and so in zones where the temperature drops below 40F, is a pretty and productive addition to a conservatory garden. Otherwise it will be happy outdoors in regions with arid hot summers and cool winters. In either situation, pomegranate […]
