GardenRant welcomes “guest ranters” who want to take over our little piece of cyberspace for the day. Whether you’re in the plant industry or just an ordinary gardener with an axe to grind, you’re invited. Find out more here.
Guest Rant by Kamryn Everett Two years ago in February, I walked into a local branch of a big box retailer and was taken by surprise when I saw a [...]
If you are afflicted with melancholy at this season, go to the swamp and see the brave spears of skunk-cabbage buds already advanced toward a new year… Is it the [...]
I had a very dear friend, Mary, who has since passed away. She was a chemist but her real love was botany. The reason I write about her here involves [...]
Xeriscaping is not a new concept, but if you don’t reside in the Western US or another arid clime, you may be less familiar with it. Most broadly, xeriscaping refers [...]
Some people look out for interesting street food or creative entertainers and artists while traveling, craving a unique cultural fix. Not me. I’m into street plants, especially hitchhikers and rowdy [...]
I had a flashback last month, glimpsing along the roadside a long border of small-flowered, egg-yolk hued daylilies, already blooming in early June. They looked suspiciously like that old stalwart [...]
What’s in a plant name, indeed? I enjoy finding new-to-me cultivars at the garden center or spring plant sales that stretch the limits of reasonable nomenclature with their hyperbolic, fanciful [...]
Fritillary nectaring on non-native privet By Guest Ranter Kathy Introne It never ceases to amaze me how many gardeners are blatantly killing our natural world - [...]
For those of us who love to garden and love to travel, a garden tour can satisfy both passions and provide inspiration and a welcome relief from the hard work [...]
Salal (Gaulthera shallon) is an often scruffy Northwest native. A few years ago, I didn’t care at all for native plants. I thought they were ugly and boring, [...]
When I wrote that I was confused by conflicting info online about stem-besting bees and how gardeners can help them, Amy Campion left an instructive comment and offered to guest-post [...]
Do you really “see” the gardens you visit? I mean, do you see what the creator of that space wanted you to see? Do you see it the same way [...]
