Prince Charles visiting Common Good City Farm in Washington, DC. It’s coronation time in Britain and some of you may be getting up at 5 tomorrow morning (or earlier, depending on your time zone) to watch it live. Me, I’ll watch the highlights but I’m genuinely excited to see how the King’s passion for gardening … Read more
From model to chicken-raising houseplant expert. If our readers know anything about Summer Rayne Oakes, it’s probably from her popular blog about growing 1,100 houseplants in her apartment. In 2016, her very verdant apartment went viral and that led her to create her blog, HomesteadBrooklyn.com and her popular houseplant YouTube channel, Plant One On Me, … Read more
The central Kentucky dogwoods had barely finished blooming in early May when horticulturist, author, and speaker Abra Lee tipped me off to Camille T. Dungy’s new book, Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden. Abra said, “It’s an excellent book—you will love it.” (Listen to this enjoyable one-hour interview with Camille Dungy, led … Read more
I hightailed it down to Asheville a few weeks ago to catch up on lost time. I hadn’t seen Heather Spencer or Charles Murray for a few years. I have watched their garden grow, off and on, for at least 35 years. It never looked better than it did on this short visit. Charles … Read more
I was happy to hear Allan Armitage a few weeks ago at Louisville’s wonderful Waterfront Botanical Gardens. Dr. A will take us on a journey, one that starts with the “D” word – downsizing – and continues as he selects plants for his new garden which started with nothing. We will listen as he … Read more
Pam Harper died last week in her home in Seaford, Virginia at the age of 93 after a short illness; and the horticultural community who knew her and loved her shared a collective sigh — as well as sharing hundreds of emails and texts alerting colleagues and friends worldwide. ‘Another giant says goodbye.’ wrote Tony … Read more
I recently visited the Native Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab, not far from me in the Patuxent Wildlife Research Refuge. What looks like a military bunker houses a project of great interest to entomologists, ecologists and nature-loving professionals and amateurs. It’s led by Sam Droege (rhymes with “hoagie”), a wildlife biologist with the Eastern Ecological … Read more
I visit an artist at his home studio The bus you see above is one of several eye-popping pieces of vehicular art that I’ve been gawking at for years, whenever I see them in my grocery store parking lot. In fact, commenting on them is a popular pastime around here, as is posting photos of … Read more
I am a bit player in the legacy of a nasturtium dynasty. My mother, Molly Bush, was our matriarch. She sowed annual nasturtium seeds devotionally every Good Friday. This was a few weeks before the last frost date. She knew what she was doing. Seeds were sown along a warm, exposed southern wall of … Read more
I am often grateful when I visit community gardens where there are generous gardeners willing to share and who follow a few rules. Where there is a scarcity of gardeners, unwilling to engage weeds or one another, there is a path to abandonment. At the exuberant Chuckanut Center in Bellingham, Washington, there was steadfast … Read more