Ellen Biddle Shipman, restored
For decades, it was an overgrown tangle of weed trees and buckthorn, with its few original plantings nearly strangled by years of neglect. When attention was finally paid to Graycliff, [...]
Elizabeth Licata
I like thug plants and I cannot lie
When I saw this quote/paraphrase from Sir Mixalot's 1992 hit in my local gardening group, I thought, “Finally. Somebody gets me.” My gardening life is punctuated by love/hate relationships with [...]
Relax, it’s just weather
Where would we be if we couldn’t complain incessantly about the weather? Such whining is harmless, as it has zero effect, and it’s fun. I do it all the time. [...]
You gotta love a floricycle
Even the name makes me smile. And now I am on a mission to document a floricycle at every stage of its development. In 2019, the final step in [...]
I cleaned up my garden. Fight me.
Spring in Western New York is fleeting, maybe just a little bit more than a state of mind. The actual gardening season from early summer to mid-fall is more substantial, [...]
They better not be coming after my bulbs!
Who isn’t ready to see spring flowers? I appreciated Susan’s enthusiastic survey of April blooms in Capitol Region public gardens. I’m also eagerly awaiting my own bulb display (shown here [...]
I have seen the future of spring garden festivals and its name is The Great Grow Along
While there’s no replicating some elements of an in-person garden show—like the sight and scent of flowers—a powerful and ambitious alternative was presented last weekend: The Great Grow Along (GGA). [...]
Come Grow Along with me
We don’t like promoting things here at Rant. We get lobbied by gardening-related PR and marketing all the time, and we mainly ignore it. Once in a while, though, something [...]
A disconcerting look at past gardening resolutions
Here's a post I wrote in April, 2006, with updates in italics. It's safe to say that I put almost none of the resolutions I made here into practice. Helen [...]
American Gardens: Didn’t love the series and the book is worse
It’s a complete miss and it’s sad. Anyone who opens American Gardens—the book that accompanies Monty Don’s BBC TV series by the same name—expecting to be wowed by spectacular photography [...]
No love for street trees
Especially not from utility companies. The image above was taken on a street on the east side of Buffalo, but this scene, or something similar, is common throughout the US, [...]
Why we have a Ministry of Controversy
Do politics belong in the garden or in a garden blog? I suggest that the answer to this question doesn’t matter much; politics are there already and have been for [...]