Behind posts, articles, conferences and social media, there's a backstory. Have you kept up with the digital correspondence between Ranters Scott Beuerlein and Marianne Willburn? You can start here, or [...]
On a plane finally bound for Virginia after a long week on the road – and in between passenger elbows and what passes for airplane refreshments – I’ve got a [...]
Often the new plants gardeners stumble upon each year at our nurseries, feed stores and big boxes are happy accidents. We see, we lust, we buy. But what most don’t [...]
If you’re doing it right, a non-fiction book should take a good deal of time to research and write. The statement is also true for good, gripping, fiction, but the [...]
Do hellebores need a defense? I wouldn’t have thought so a decade ago, but three years ago I had to defend their cultivation to a master gardener who officially advised [...]
28 January 2023 Lovettsville, VA Dear Scott, Saturday morning and I’m sitting in the yellow chair I was sitting in when you annoyed me so badly with that Horticulture snark [...]
Just because we CAN do a thing, doesn’t mean we SHOULD do a thing or even MUST do a thing. This applies as equally to saving tender plants as it [...]
Yes, I know. We could have done with this post about two months ago. But two months ago I was planting bulbs and didn’t have time to write it. Still, [...]
December 28, 2022 Lovettsville, VA Dear Scott, Whew. What a December! I believe I spent the entire month on my knees planting bulbs during the day, and at my desk [...]
‘Tis the season for giving, and once this season ‘tis over, ‘tis another one right around the corner. The pressure is on to find the perfect gift, and if you’re [...]
November 17, 2022 Lovettsville, VA Dear Scott, It says something about my scattered state of mind and work ethic at the moment that I have five half-finished articles up on [...]
I’m a marmalade lover, and make orange marmalade regularly every winter; but this year I harvested the first significant fruit from my hardy orange tree (Citrus trifoliata syn. Poncirus trifoliata) [...]
