I have no interest in ‘Winter Interest’
I have developed a strong antipathy for the term ‘winter interest’ in garden writing. Do we truly have nothing better to say about winter gardens or the plants growing in [...]
Marianne Willburn
The Why Winter Garden Challenge: Join Me?
The day before Christmas, I was gathering colorful ‘Arctic Fire’ cornus twigs in the garden, and was feeling content about the fact that the surrounding scene wasn’t the winter wasteland [...]
Go Foraged. And Take the Fear Out of Formal Tablescapes.
I'm into table decorating. Always have been. If you give me a table and an hour, and put someone else in charge of stirring the balsamic reduction, I am in [...]
Bulbs Are So Much More Than Pretty Faces: A Letter to The Midwest
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 [...]
When Coming Home, Plants Take Priority
There’s a process to coming home after a long journey. There’s a process to settling back into one’s routines and ruts and beloved pillows and remembering the systems that facilitate [...]
On The Plight of The Aging Gardener: Letter to The Midwest
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 [...]
What Do I Not Get About The Hori-Hori?!?
I’ve just finished up the huge task of creating a Ranters’ Recommendations page on GardenRant – a page that tells you a little bit about each of our gardens, and [...]
No Way is There One Way to Garden
There’s more than one way to do everything. In gardening. In life. In planting an apple tree, or peeling apples over the sink. Certainly there are rules that guide us [...]
If it means I don’t have to water, I’m good with the deck falling down.
It’s so dry right now in my little part of Rain Shadow, Virginia that even the blades of Japanese stilt grass are curling. When, last night, my husband decided, mid-sip, [...]
Umbellifers and Unbelievable Views: A Letter to The Midwest
Lovettsville, VA 24 July 2023 Dear Scott, I wonder if I should technically write ‘Lovettsville’ at the top of this letter, as I am sitting in the passenger seat of [...]
A Fond Goodbye to Pam Harper
Pam Harper died last week in her home in Seaford, Virginia at the age of 93 after a short illness; and the horticultural community who knew her and loved her [...]
Why I Don’t Want To Lose My ‘Ugly’ Snag
Whether by bug, bolt, or brutal conditions, large trees die from time to time, and our first impulse is to solve the problem by chainsaw. But if the tree is [...]