THREE-HUNDRED SIXTY-FOUR DAYS of the year, he’s got me nailed: Yes, Andre, I am often seen in the wrong footwear (read: garden boots), no matter the occasion. They’re just so easy on the feet, if not the eyes. But today, as yet another glacier slid across beautiful downtown Cupcake Falls, N.Y., even I had to relent and change into crampons to go break up the ice, or at least give it my best shot. [Read more...]
doodle by andre: ever fashionable
starting to think about starting seeds
EVEN IF I WERE STARTING LEEKS AND ONIONS indoors from seed, two of the earliest things one might sow, it isn’t time yet here in Zone 5B. But if you live in a slightly warmer zone, or want to do a mental dress-rehearsal, I’ve assembled some of the seed-starting tips and tricks from around A Way to Garden, for easier reference. More to come as the time gets closer. [Read more...]
beloved conifer: golden spreading yew
ENGLISH YEWS WERE A STAPLE of foundation planting around the house I grew up in, the darkest of green blobs with those tempting red berries we kids were warned to stay away from: poisonous. Maybe that sense of all-too-familiar put me off growing yews here when I began my garden–or at least until I discovered the spreading golden English form. The second in a series on beloved conifers. [Read more...]
doodle by andre: sowing hope
WHAT BETTER WAY TO START OUR NEW ERA as a nation than by sowing seeds of hope? Thanks to a recent transplant to America, doodler Andre Jordan, for a perfect message for this historic week.
beloved conifers: weeping alaska cedar
AS MANY BEGINNERS DO, I CREATED MY GARDEN BACKWARDS: planting herbaceous things first and trees and shrubs later, when their different time to maturity would have made the opposite strategy smarter. Worst of all, I forgot conifers almost entirely in those first years. I’ve stayed put long enough to outgrow my early mishaps, and have some favorite evergreens to share including the weeping Alaska Cedar cedar, Chamaecyparis nootkatensis ‘Pendula’ (above, in my far borders to the west of the house). The first in a series on beloved conifers. [Read more...]









