When a Gardener Goes “Professional,” More Plants Die
In the face of our increasingly warming and drying climate in the Pacific Northwest, my front garden is planted to reduce time at the end of a hose. [...]
Cultivating Raspberries, Responsibility, and Connection
Growing gardeners while we tend our plants. When I was in elementary school, lo so long ago, one of my favorite assignments was writing a recap like, My [...]
Navigating the Late-Season Garden
As I mentioned in a recent newsletter, I am officially OVER the 2025 growing season. My garden is parched and defeated. And so am I. Uneasy with my discord I [...]
Why do I Keep Gardening?
Welcome to the inside of my head after a busy growing season when I’m trying to remember why I choose to keep gardening. Please indulge me a bit of self [...]
Cutting Back
There's something bad lurking in the undergrowth in a large number of gardens. Something worse than any disease, more destructive than any pest. It's a problem that is eating away [...]
What Makes A Great Gardener?
I own rather too many gardening books. In excess of 800 to be precise. Most are books about plants and practical gardening, although I have a healthy number of books [...]
Down the Yellow Brick Road with Millie
Millie Ellis, the quintessential avant-gardener When Mildred Rose Ellis was a girl growing up in the Village of Batavia, Ohio, her family lived in an old schoolhouse. [...]
“Animals and Plants are the Story of Life on Earth”
By the way, that title is not mine. I scribbled the line in a notebook last fall when I heard fellow Ranter Scott Beuerlein speak at the Bellevue Botanical Garden [...]
How Many Words for Gardening?
Legend has it that Inuit have more than 100 words for snow. A friend told us yesterday that we need a similar number of words for gardening. She had just [...]
‘Horticulturist’
I was scratching around looking for something to write about and then this came to my attention. Well it's not a bad question... Talk of divine inspiration; I [...]