A Great Dixter Education
At Great Dixter in the golden light of a brilliant morning, three little boys traveled along the meadow path. A sweet summer mix of native grasses, yellow rattle, hawks bit [...]
Jenny Price Nelson, Guest Ranter
On the Roof at Lurie Garden
If the powers that be at Chicago’s Millennium Park ever asked me to choose a theme song for Lurie Garden, I would suggest Up on the Roof, first performed by [...]
New Year’s Resolution: Kill Red Imported Fire Ants!
Red imported fire ants (RIFA) traumatize nearly every gardener they meet, but like Travis at the Alamo, “I shall never surrender or retreat.” Despite the unrelenting torture they dish out, [...]
Ode to the Green Anoles: Southern Bug Zappers
My latest Guest Rant is dedicated to America’s green anole lizards, the Rodney Dangerfield of beneficial predators. They’re cute. They eat bugs. They don’t bite people. And yet, compared [...]
Skin Cancer and My Summer Freeze Damage
With temperatures hovering at around a gazillion degrees, it seems strange to Rant about a small spot of freeze damage, a spot which is not on my plants, but on [...]
Let’s Aim Higher Than All Shrub Plantings
No more larking about in the comment zone for me—Susan Harris’s “Lowest-Maintenance Borders are All-Shrub” has called me out for a Guest Rant. Although I appreciate high quality shrub [...]