“I’m going to be as big as you, someday!” says little Picea pungens ‘Ruby Teardrops’ to ‘big bro’ across the way. (Actually not, of course: ‘Ruby Teardrops’ only attains a size of about 3′ x 3′, but a conifer can dream, can’t it?)
Sooner or later, most gardeners who have more than a couple of planting areas will reach a point where referring to a plant’s location simply as “front yard”, “back yard” or “side yard” just won’t do anymore. This is where the Naming of Beds – which may not be quite as elaborate as T.S. Eliot…
My son is growing alliums in his garden for the first time, and apparently two of the ‘Globemaster’ bulbs were delivered by a UFO rather than by UPS, judging by the ‘antennae’ they decided to produce … in order to ‘phone home’, no doubt! I was immediately reminded of a favorite sitcom back in the…
I am now convinced that the adage “You never know what you’ve got until it’s gone” must have been originally coined by a gardener – specifically, a gardener who relocated from a site having decent soil to one with soil that is…well, let’s just use ‘challenging’ as the euphemism. My gardening life began about 40+…
Pick up most gardening books and you are likely to see the proverbial ‘blank slate’ touted somewhere in its pages as being A Good Thing. In most cases, it is – as anyone who has had to either hew down, or pay someone to remove, the other “proverbial” which is ‘mature trees’ that one doesn’t…
Gardeners are nothing if not resourceful, and unless one has money to burn (hint: Not me!) we always have that “Where/how can I use this?” question in the back of our minds. Not long ago it popped up in mine and although it took a little bit of time – okay, well, more like a…
It’s been more than a year since I last reported on my seed-grown baby tree peonies that made their surprise appearance in May 2017 …. shame on me, and I am appropriately red-faced! My “helicopter Peony Mom” post was uploaded a month later, and followed up with a mini-drama during the ensuing winter (February 2018.)…
I have now officially added cannas to my list of Plants That Will Never Grow For Me Anywhere. This is the third garden at which I’ve tried them with either zero or pathetically minimal success, but I do wish I could figure out what I’ve been doing wrong. I’m in Zone 7 (either a or…
The Chatsworth Lady 