Plants we love, hate, or just have something to say about.
Ceremony in NC for the 2022 Capitol Christmas Tree - with folk singers, and the Cherokee boy chosen to light the tree. I got a nice email from [...]
In truth, there's not a lot of difference between the 20 or so hornbeam species, so collecting them might have been a little crazy. Still, I’m glad I did. They're all really nice trees. I've got specimens scattered around the yard and I've given several away to friends who are now in my debt and, because of that, try their best to overlook the awful things I routinely say and do when I'm around them. One thing I'll say about hornbeams that I can't say about most of my friends, they look wonderful from a distance and even better up close.
Primped mums staged next to a rack of antifreeze may seem, to many of you, as appealing as convenient store rotisserie hot dogs, but what’s not to like about [...]
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) [...]
My first exposure to caladiums was a memorable one. I was not yet into horticulture. It was the 80s. I was working in an office in downtown Cincinnati and sometimes [...]
Look what appeared in a landscape I'm working on after I weeded and planted a groundcover (Liriope) that will eventually fill in enough to prevent weeds. Mugwort seeds have sprouted [...]
Better than mums How to use mums? How many of us get that question? Sure, I see lots of discussions on how to keep mums alive, when to [...]
I'll admit it's humbling to reread this post from 2018 in which I defended Periwinkle (Vinca minor) when it's grown where it can't do any harm. An example is in [...]
Every year I notice one plant in particular that people seemed to like above all the rest, at least enough to comment on it, and this year it's the common [...]
Black Tupelo tree, very rare Now here’s a campaign rallying cry you don’t hear too often: “Don’t we have enough trees around here?” It came from the Republican [...]
Sure, I know there isn’t much buy-in for common annuals these days. Now we can add to the historic disdain - from many longtime gardeners, though certainly not all - [...]
I flew to Seattle a few weeks ago to visit my daughter Molly and her family in Bellingham, Washington—a two-hour drive north of Seattle. Give me Liberty took flight [...]
