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Eight Must-Haves From Chanticleer
Chanticleer, just outside of Philadelphia, bills itself as “A Pleasure Garden” and I think that title pretty much nails it. This garden celebrates plants, design, and craftsmanship more than any...
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Help Me Stop Buying Variegated Conifers
Pinus parviflora ‘Goldilocks’ — Could I grow this in a pot on my patio, do you think? Talk about a foolish new fetish! Since most conifers are sun-lovers, my yard (a haven for plants that love dry...
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“Now Entering the Xeric Hardpan Forest”
Recently I purchased and read Wildflowers and Plant Communities of the Southern Appalachians and Piedmont. Now, before you go labeling me as a mega-dweeb, you should know that plant communities are...
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It’s the Most Walnutty Time of the Year
Isn’t the weedy Hellebore bed with wire fencing just super classy? It’s my patented “Postmodern Retro Tacky” design aesthetic. No, those aren’t dirty tennis balls. Those are just a few dozen of the...
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RIP, Pink Dawn Viburnum
Viburnum x bodnantense ‘Pink Dawn’ 2012-2012 Fare thee well, large shrub/small tree. I barely knew ye. And though hardly reminiscent of a daybreak seeped in glorious pink light, I did enjoy those...
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Garden Designer’s Roundtable: How to Terrify Young Children With Your Landscape
Folks, it’s not too late to completely re-do your landscape for Halloween! Whether your goal is just to have a little spooky fun, or to actually terrorize the children so they will not set foot in your...
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Garden Designers’ Roundtable: Memory and Plants
I’ll I’ll be honest. I had a hard time figuring out how to approach this topic. As I have mentioned before, I am New Dirt and not Old Dirt, meaning I do not come from a long line of gardeners, but...
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David Culp’s Layered Garden Includes Black Walnuts!
More good news for those of us living with Juglans nigra! In his new book The Layered Garden, David Culp describes several genera that he has grown with success beneath these anti-social trees,...
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“Malignant Magenta”
Some interesting revelations in a book I’m currently reading called One Writer’s Garden, which is about the Jackson, Mississippi garden of Eudora Welty and her mother Chestina. Last night I read this...
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The Optimism of Tiny Trees
I have a vivid memory of eating a Red Delicious apple when I was seven years old and, afterward, regarding the dark seeds embedded in the core. I asked my dad if I planted one of the seeds would we...
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RIP, Pink Dawn Viburnum
Viburnum x bodnantense ‘Pink Dawn’ 2012-2012 Fare thee well, large shrub/small tree. I barely knew ye. And though hardly reminiscent of a daybreak seeped in glorious pink light, I did enjoy those...
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High Maintenance Plants & People
Behold my Camellia ‘Niccio’s Bella Rossa’: My li’l camellia cowers in the cold and snow. Sad, right? Let me tell you the story of this plant. I spotted her a few years ago at the garden center – in...
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Winter Red, Green Panda, Blue Trout
Ilex verticillata ‘Winter Red’ Garden Trout Imperata cylindrica ‘Red Baron’ Fargesia rufa ‘Green Panda’; Aspidistra elatior ‘Alahi’; Danae racemosa Confused forsythia bloom
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In Praise of the Boxwood
The boxwood gods have always smiled upon me. Despite what I’ve read about gardeners having difficulties with Buxus, every single boxwood I’ve planted in my garden has performed admirably while asking...
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No Longer Winter
Is there anything more miraculous than taking a walk on a late January afternoon in zone 7a and encountering masses of flowers? Not “winter interest”, no, but full-on, voluptuous, lipstick-colored...
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Melania Trump Vows to Preserve Obama Garden
Though many of her husband’s projects are likely to be uprooted, there is good news for Michelle Obama’s vegetable garden. Looks like Melania Trump is fond of gardening, too. Or at least fond of...
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Great Day to Be Alive
When it’s close to 70 degrees on February 18 it seems like there is very little in the world worth complaining about. Even the traffic on New York Avenue seems worth it once you’re finally at the...
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Sedge Allegiance
This WaPo article by Adrian Higgins about sedges has been going around among my garden-oriented acquaintances, so I thought I’d share my own sedge experiences. I’ve got two types of sedge in abundance:...
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Care for a Black Walnut?
I’ve got plenty. And plenty still to come: This is a nifty nut collector made by the folks at Garden Weasel. What a treat to discover a yard device that requires no engine and makes no noise, that is...
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Black Walnut Inspiration
For when you get demoralized thinking about all the things you can’t grow under your black walnut, take heart. This venerable black walnut tree, located at Green Spring Gardens in Alexandria, VA,...
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