My Granddaughter and I Take On Johnny Appleseed
Should we strive for a “blemish-free, plastic-red saccharine orb” in Salvisa? I don't think so. Shutterstock photo. As a young boy, I would have chosen a gumdrop tree [...]
Allen Bush
Kelly Norris, Gilles Clément and Allen Lacy Occupy my Mind over Christmas
We had heavy rains this Christmas season, with eerily warm temperatures in the 60s and 70s. The Salt River was swollen, while winter jasmines and even a few Asian cherries [...]
Master Logger, 42, Did the Job on our Walnut Tree
Indiana tulip poplars in the 1920s. There is an abandoned fencerow on our Salvisa, Kentucky, farm. It’s marked clearly. A dozen black walnut trees Juglans nigra grow in [...]
Paring Down My High-Maintenance Garden
Our country garden, nicknamed Putt-Putt at Machu Picchu, was toppled before first frost. A vital part of our garden has become a dog run. Gone are the scree beds, replaced [...]
Hackberry Nerds Like Me, Not in Lab Coats
Nowhere else on the planet will you find anything that compares to the geeky and up-to-date Garden Rant coverage of hackberries. Last week’s Guest Rant by Scott Beuerlein nudged the [...]
At Emory Knoll Farms, a New Garden by Ogden, Snodgrass and Uebelhart
Ogden, Snodgrass and Uebelhart is not a pricey, litigious law firm. O.S.& U. was a garden collaboration, solidly rooted on terra firma, stretched across three continents. The O.S.& U. principals, [...]
Way Down Yonder in the Blue Ribbon Pawpaw Patch
Tony Joe WhiteFANART.TV photo Tony Joe White’s Poke Salad Annie couldn’t change my mind about pawpaws. Nor about what deserves recognition as the best native plant song of [...]
Breeders at the Top of the Daylily World
David Kirchhoff and Mort Morss on top of the Daylily World in early December. David Kirchhoff and Mort Morss helped smooth my horrible mood swings with daylilies. I [...]
Janet Draper: A Perennial Force
Janet Draper at the Mary Livingston Ripley Garden. Rare is the circus that has the extraordinary talent or the vast experience of someone like Janet Draper. This dynamo [...]
Adventures in a Real Kentucky Prairie
Shutterstock photo My excitement for wild plants is as far afield from Mad Max: Fury Road as you can imagine. My best botanizing adventures, by comparison, would be [...]
My Prairie Plot Thickens
It would be a stretch to call our reconstituted former hay field a prairie. What we have is a beautiful contrivance—a make-believe prairie. July 1, 2014 Contrary to [...]
Clausen and Christopher’s “Essential Perennials”…You Gotta Have It.
Are you ready for another great Garden Rant Giveaway? Now’s your chance! You could be the lucky winner of Essential Perennials: The Complete Reference to 2700 Perennials for the Home [...]