U.S. Botanic Garden now Part of the U.S. Capitol Fortress
This is as close as I could get to the U.S. Botanic Garden today, with all of it now fenced in and heavily guarded. You can barely see the white [...]
Susan Harris
Susan’s a garden writer, teacher and activist in the Washington, D.C. area. Co-founder of GardenRant, she also wrote for national gardening magazines and independent garden centers before retiring in 2014. Now she has time for these projects:
- Founding the pro-science educational nonprofit Good Gardening Videos that finds and promotes the best videos on YouTube for teaching people to garden.
- Creating DC Gardens, the nonprofit campaign to promote the public gardens of the Washington, D.C. area, and gardening by locals.
- Creating and editing the nonprofit website Greenbelt Online to serve her adopted hometown of Greenbelt, Maryland (a “New Deal Utopia” founded in 1937).
Susan rants about anything that misinforms or discourages gardeners – from old-school quacks to mistaken do-gooders to local laws that mandate conformity.
Contact Susan via email or by leaving a comment on one of her articles.
GardenRants by Michele Owens – My 10 Favorites
If you were a GardenRant reader in the early days, you'll remember Michele Owens, one of our founders, and her wise, witty and sometimes politically incorrect articles here. Here are [...]
White House Lawn Festooned with Valentine’s Day Hearts – Who Cares if they’re Corny?
In what her office called "The first lady’s surprise Valentine messages to the country, Valentine's Day candies with messages of love and healing were installed overnight, surprising the President. They [...]
The GardenRant Story
To help celebrate GardenRant's 15th anniversary this year, I've pulled together the story of how it started, how it continued through changes in life circumstances and technical crises, and how [...]
Three More White House Garden Stories Already
Continuing our reporting on garden-related news about the First Family, something new has turned up about gardens the Bidens may have created or cared. Bidens Added Family Heritage Garden at [...]
Plant Delights 2021 Catalog Sparks Outrage
Tony Avent's beloved garden and his Plant Delights Nursery in North Carolina have many mentions here on GardenRant, all favorable. We've reported on visits in person, and we were thrilled [...]
“Dr. Biden’s Garden” and Inaugural Dress – Looks like she’s a Garden-Lover!
Post-election, I wrote "First Lady Jill Biden and the White House Gardens," listing everything my research unearthed about Dr. Biden as a gardener or garden-lover, and speculating on whether she [...]
Abuse of Osmanthus Shrubs by Power Tools
Take a look at the two 'Goshiki' Osmanthus (a/k/a False Holly) on either side of my front door, where they get just a couple hours of late afternoon sun. They're [...]
Little Island Coming in 2021 and I Can’t Wait!
When a friend spotted this image in the Secret NYCC Instagram feed, she alerted me immediately because - I mean my God! What IS it? Well, it's a 2.4-acre floating [...]
Who Says Native Plants have Longer Roots?
"Secret Life of Roots" exhibit at the U.S. Botanic Garden Still Ranting about Generalizations Over my 14+ years of garden-ranting here, my number one target has been sweeping [...]
PBS Documentary on Norman Borlaug’s “Green Revolution”
Norman Borlaug had long been on my radar for starting a "Green Revolution" in farming that no one today would call green. But in his day the term referred to [...]
“Most Beautiful College Campuses” Lists are a Mixed Bag
I couldn't resist clicking on "Conde Nest Traveler's 50 Most Beautiful College Campuses in America" listicle when it came across my Facebook feed and scrolling through the famously beautiful campuses like [...]