Miss Goodwin Turned Me into a Sower of Seeds
Sower with Setting Sun “I dream my painting and I paint my dream.” Vincent Van Gogh I doubt, at my age, I will be sowing too many wild oats. [...]
Allen Bush
At Jelitto, an Office Became a Garden Sanctuary and Art Space
Mary Vaananen When I retired from Jelitto Perennial Seeds at the end of last year, my desk was neither memorialized nor mothballed. Gone, however, are old coffee cups, [...]
The Spotted Lanternfly is No Hoax
John Prine. Photo: Oh Boy Records. The singer-songwriter John Prine doesn’t have anything to do with the hungry spotted lanternfly, but bear with me. Spotted lanternfly is not [...]
Kentucky Hemp and The Great American Weed Rush
I have a history of occasional, informal, peer-reviewed, THC trials of psychoactive marijuana. The trial was simple: I smoked marijuana with friends. I try to imagine I was judged, [...]
How Do We Raise More Farmers?
I may have come across the future of American farming. Mind you, what I found was small-scale farming, but if farming and rural communities are to survive, it may come [...]
Gertrude Jekyll Border at Raulston Arboretum
Edith Eddleman and the Jekyll Border at the J.C. Raulston Arboretum. I arrived in Raleigh a few days before last week’s Perennial Plant Association (PPA) Symposium. I checked [...]
A Summer Phlox Survives Storms and Spies
A field of Russian phloxes. Christian Kress, Sarastro-Stauden photo. Just off our front porch, a Phlox of sentimental interest didn’t flinch during heavy storms a week and a [...]
Great Dixter Through the Lens of an 11-Year Old
Rose and I traveled to England early this month with Story May Lowe, our 11-year-old granddaughter. To Story, I am known as Babu a name I inherited. My grandfather was [...]
In the Garden This Year I’m Betting on Cool Breezes, Soaking Rains and Joyous Moments
My good luck began this spring with a three-year-old thoroughbred named Justify. I was smitten the first moment I saw the beautiful chestnut-colored horse walk onto the Churchill Downs track [...]
Time to Rethink “Pretty” in the Garden
Benjamin Vogt and I began an email exchange last March after I read his very interesting A New Garden Ethic: Cultivating Defiant Compassion for an Uncertain Future.
Movie review – “Five Seasons: The Gardens of Piet Oudolf”
The documentary Five Seasons: The Gardens of Piet Oudolf opens with Oudolf pulling out colored pens and drawing, with his left hand, bright squiggles, slashes, curlicues and abbreviated Latin plant [...]
Kentucky’s Secret Gardens, Including Mine, on TV
Looking for inspiration and information? Catch a glimpse of Kentucky's Secret Gardens. Author Tavia Cathcart Brown hosts the documentary, sponsored by Kentucky Education Television (KET). I was flattered to be [...]