Supporting Our Local Garden Clubs
A Most Alluring Rose
Without doubt, I appreciate the beauty and – for those selections so ‘gifted’ – the fragrance of a rose. Admittedly, for many years I was reluctant to consider roses for gardens. Maybe it was my parent’s ill-fated attempts at growing them or the simple fact that many ‘bite’ should I get too close, but I simply was not sold on gardening with roses…
Experience is the Best Teacher
My appreciation for shade trees has certainly changed over the years. Like many gardeners, it was a group of plants I valued yet rarely used in designs or planted! Of course, perspectives change and I am now a huge proponent of planting shade trees. I have grown especially fond of trees that can tolerate the abuses associated with tough sites and are beneficial to wildlife…
Sweeping Together New Garden Visions
During my drive to work, I pass a number of homes whose landscapes mostly consist of a tidy row or two of shrubs paired with a neatly trimmed lawn. The spring may offer some floral enhancement, but by-and-large, the landscapes remain a steadfast green. Few homeowners consider replacing some of those shrubs and turf with a stylized meadow featuring sweeps of various flowering perennials and grasses….
The Frosting on the Gardener’s Cake
In this age of readily disseminated literature and specialty nurseries delivering novel and little-known plants to your doorstep, logic would have it that all the intriguing and easily grown plants would be well-known and at a gardeners’ fingertips…
Beauty is Worth a Second Attempt
I am not certain if it is forgetfulness or simply a lack of patience, but I am always astonished at the number of times I have grown a plant unsuccessfully and opted not to try it again until many years later. A case in point is Bowman’s Root, botanically known as Gillenia trifoliata. I remember exactly where I planted it in 1987 at a garden in Hawthorne, NJ and I did not give the plant much consideration again until some 35 years later!….
