As I prepare for the new year I have been thinking about the importance of conservation, about preserving the best of what we have for the benefit of the next generations. Today I am posting a piece I wrote three years ago after talking to an inspiring conservationist and speaker. My inspiration is a gaggle of grandchildren, two of whom love to play in the old apple tree in our field, home and pantry to birds - and…
Things go bump in the night at this time of the year, but in her new book, Wicked Plants: The Weed that Killed Lincoln’s Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities (Algonquin Books $18.95), Amy Stewart takes us on a tour of the more bloodcurdling aspects of botany. We all know that Abraham Lincoln grew up motherless from the age of nine, but I certainly never knew that it was white snakeroot (Eupatoreum rugosum) that killed his mother in1818.…
My father never felt dinner was over until he had eaten his apple. The apple was a ritual. He loved cutting an apple in half around the equator to show us, or any available children, the star hidden in the center of the apple. And he proved the adage that an apple a day keeps the doctor away. He rarely needed the services of a doctor until his short final illness. With news coverage of the H1N1…
John and Mary Ellen Warchol cannot take a visitor on a tour of their display garden without urging smells and tastes. “Lemon basil makes a fabulous pesto. Taste,” John says. “Taste this. The smaller leaves are very flavorful,” Mary Ellen says. “Mmmmm. Thai basil really is different. Spicy,” I agree. I did not taste all 40 of the types of basil the Warchols grow but I gained a new appreciation for the variety of flavors that…
Nearly 30 years ago when Thom Chiofalo first saw this plot of land in Rowe it was nothing but woods and an impossible slope. Now the approach is a green wall of hemlock set on a mossy carpet. When the sunburst gate flies open it reveals a vista of water and a grove of trees. A few more steps and I was enthralled by the vastness of the sky and the welcoming walks that lead down the broad…
My wisteria has gone wild. Tendrils are twisting everywhere. New shoots are coming up everywhere. The wisteria’s genetic vitality has never been so vigorous. I am blaming it all on the cool and rainy summer. My history with this wisteria is long and varied. During our first year in China we saw many beautiful wisterias with their graceful pendant flowers blooming everywhere from the long gorgeous pergola in Purple Bamboo Park, to humble trellises in dusty…
Last weekend my cousin Jay married the beautiful Juliet in a white garden designed by Robin Kramer, the owner of the house where the wedding took place. A summer wedding could ask no more beautiful setting than a white garden such as this. White gardens seem to have a place all their own in garden literature. I suppose one reason is that there are so many flowers, shrubs, vines and trees that bloom in shades of white…
“How’s your garden this year?” This is the question on everyone’s lips this summer, and in my case the answer is “Not good.” I began with the usual good intentions, and even more energy and enthusiasm as I decided to start my own vegetable seedlings and enlarge the garden. My plan was to grow more of my own vegetables than ever, and thus save lots of money on grocery bills. However, we all…
“I guess you can see I like water,” Jane Markoski said as she gave me a tour through her gardens. There was a birdbath in the shady entry garden, a trickling fountain as you turned the corner of the house, a bubbling faux millstone fountain at the corner of the barn, a lotus tub in the middle of a mixed shrub and perennial border, a small fish pond with a waterfall, and a larger fish pond with a…
Kathy Puckett is a collector. She has hundreds of orchids and hundreds of daylilies. She has lilies and roses and peonies. But right now she is celebrating her Siberian irises. Blue, purple, yellow and white. Great clumps of healthy gorgeous plants. When I asked if she had a favorite flower family (it was obvious she could never choose a favorite individual flower) she hesitated. “I love them all for different reasons. Sometimes I love the flower, or…