As we left the greenhouse saga begun in Be Careful What You Wish For, it was the winter of 1983-84 and I’d finally figured out a few ways to keep the orchids from either freezing to death or dying of thirst. It turned out that the electric-heat problem solved itself just at the start of…
(Recently, while sorting through some of my old scribblings and photos from the era of garden #1, I came across this and decided to bring it back into the light of day…as a cautionary tale, perhaps? 🙂 ) I think it’s fairly safe to assume that the dream of almost every windowsill grower is to…
Now that the snow is gone and the winter is (hopefully) over, the Temporary Garden has finally thawed out – at least to the point where flower-hunting is possible. But the pickings are still slim, as shown by this one clump of purple crocus and one lonely aconite shivering in the chilly wind. The aconite…
I have a love/hate relationship with garden ornaments: The ones I love the most, have price tags that I hate. Which I suppose is understandable for antique garden elements reclaimed from old Gold Coast estates or British country houses. Nevertheless I do have a few things acquired now and then over the years that are…
If gardening ever becomes an Olympic sport, I fully intend to sign up for the snow-swatting event – especially after all the training sessions this winter (and last winter too, come to think of it). When I first began to garden, lo those many moons ago, I devoured all the sage advice in every book…
My ‘temporary garden’ isn’t what you might think; it’s not a container garden, nor one filled with tender plants to be discarded at season’s end, nor a rented-space garden, nor a garden that I plan to rip out and remake. In fact it’s what most people would probably consider to be a “mature” garden: there…
Anyone’s wish-list of plants with wild, wonderful or weird coloration should definitely include the type of iris known as ‘broken color.’ Although I love irises, it wasn’t until about six years ago that I discovered these unique variants. The broken color iris have petals that are variously splashed, spotted and/or streaked with color. The cause…
The chocolate lover who also gardens has the unique opportunity to combine both addictions into a guilt-free pleasure in the creation of a Chocolate Garden. I did exactly that some years ago in a small east facing bed and my first decision was how I should define a plant’s qualifications for admittance: should it be…
The Chatsworth Lady 