No matter where I am, I always try to notice what is growing around me. Last week I was stuck in traffic on a busy commercial street not far from my house. Gazing at the gas station on the other […]
YELLING ABOUT YARROW
LOOKING BACK
Fall in this part of the world is often more of a collision of summer and winter than a season in its own right. Temperatures swing wildly between unseasonable warmth and unexpected cold. Trees color and leaves fall right on […]
Do you have the Correct Bedding Plants in your Garden?
The description bedding plant is not an exact one and only means that the plant is grown elsewhere in some quantity and then planted out as a temporary occupant of the bed; this being known as `bedding out’. The bedding […]
Out of Sight Out of Mind, How to build
Occasionally we are faced with a feature that is something of an eyesore. We tend to think of pergolas as free standing but they can also be used to hide an ugly wall, shed or garage. The Challenge Our client […]
Living In Clover
One of the holistic healing gurus—Dr. Andrew Weill, I think—has suggested that one of the keys to wellness is surrounding yourself with flowers. I like to expand that idea and surround myself with plants, particularly ones with attractive and/or sweet-smelling […]
Growing Hazel and Walnut Trees
The commonest types of nut grown are the hazel and walnut. The two variants of the common hazel, Corylus avellana, are the cobnut with short husks and the filbert with long husks. Both are suitable for planting on poor, stony […]
TREASURES OF THE ORIENT – Gardening
Two weeks ago I went to a wonderful lecture at the New York Botanical Garden. The speaker was Barry Yinger, a well known plantsman and author who specializes in Asian flora. The topic for the day was “New Japanese Plants […]
Growing information on Annual flowers
Annuals Most of the flowering bedding plants sold in the spring are annuals. Annuals usually bloom continuously for months and are then killed by frost. They are often used as companion plants to perennials or bulbs (which bloom for a […]
PREHISTORIC PROTEA
I used to spurn exotic plants, even those with glorious flowers. Looking back, I think the avoidance was probably yet another form of adolescent rebellion. After all, my grandmother was passionate about birds of paradise, and my mother probably bought […]
ANTICIPATING DROUGHT
When I was growing up in a rural area in western New York State, some of the farmers used to say that drought came in eleven-year cycles. This was not as bad as it sounds. To my knowledge, the area […]