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spicebush, cornelian cherry, and more: forsythia alternatives, please
HAVING COMPLAINED in various spaces including here about Forsythia (except the lesser-grown forms with gold or variegated leaves, which are [read more…]
Latest Posts
hot p(l)ants: magnolias
THE ONLY SHAME about magnolias is that so few varieties are widely grown. You will certainly have seen the overblown [read more…]
favorite gourd
DON’T GET ME STARTED on Cucurbita, the genus that includes pumpkins and squash and some of the gourds. No group [read more…]
taxonomy lite
IT ALL SOUNDS LIKE Plantus unknowniensis at the start, but botanical Latin is the mother tongue of gardening, and must [read more…]
pine grosbeaks, my winter companions
THOUGH I AM HAPPY to exclude deer from my garden, my approach to birds is quite another story. The place [read more…]
what is killing bats?
I WAS ON THE PHONE with a fellow gardener last week near dusk when the first bat I’d seen this [read more…]
hot p(l)ants: overlooked witch-hazels
IF GARDEN CENTERS WERE OPEN in February or March in cold-climate zones like mine, I predict that early blooming Asian [read more…]
a season for sisterhood (from 1989)
WE HAVE FOUND neutral ground, my sister and I. After three and a half decades, there is at last a [read more…]
hot p(l)ants: hellebores, bravest perennial
WHY WAIT FOR THE FIRST of the bulbs or an extra-eager perennials like Pulmonaria to see some color outside? Most [read more…]
well said: clematis
AN UNPRUNED CLEMATIS looks like a disemboweled mattress—a painful sight.’—the late Christopher Lloyd of Great Dixter, garden writer, nurseryman, gardening [read more…]
