Remembering the Garden
One of the advantages of gardening in the Piedmont is that we gardeners can aim to have something in bloom almost 12 months a year – but this takes some planning…
Read MoreOne of the advantages of gardening in the Piedmont is that we gardeners can aim to have something in bloom almost 12 months a year – but this takes some planning…
Read MoreAs gardeners, we all know that weeding is an essential ingredient to maintaining a well-groomed garden. Groan all you want but if you’re going to have a garden you are going to have to weed. Several books published in the late 1990s advocated letting the weeds remain.
“Your garden’s so pretty! How do you do that?” my neighbor gushed. She: stylishly dressed, walking her dog; me: wet and muddy squatting down with my hands in the soil. I was about to explain that I enjoy tending my garden and that, with a little effort…
Let me introduce my latest fascination — Echinacea x hybrida ‘Red Ombre.’ I know what you’re thinking: What could possibly be special about an Echinacea? Readers of this column may recall that I like to meet new plants by first learning their botanical name, so let’s start with the genus Echinacea…
When I first began to garden, I was only interested in those plants that made a big statement, plants…
We gardeners sometimes think way too much in terms of flowers when, perhaps, we should instead concentrate more on the color green. After all, it’s the color green that permanently resides in our gardens. I have written before about the…
Recently, I have been marveling over the complexities of the common daisy. Daisies belong to the family Asteraceae, a family that contains…
A packet of seeds, meant to catch my eye, arrived in the mail. A seed company in a faraway state, trying to get my business, wants me to look at their catalog. Its strategy backfired. I’m not happy with the little gift; in fact, I’m rather huffy about it. The colorful packet featured a watercolor image of several different unidentifiable….
As any gardener will tell you, there are lots of good plants out there but few truly great plants. This got me thinking: What makes a plant great? Bob Solberg, hybridizer extraordinaire of hostas and owner of Green Hill Hostas in Franklinton, wrote an article on great hostas…
Have I mastered the art of planting containers or just gotten bored? I stalk the garden centers looking for inspiration, but my mind goes blank, so my containers end up looking pretty much the same as last season.
During the height of the pandemic, because there was little else to ponder, I began wondering what distinguishes rambling roses from climbing roses…
In April I attended a Zoom presentation on plant diversity led by Tony Avent of Plant Delights fame. This old dog learned some new tricks — and I suddenly understood what I had done right in my garden and what I had done wrong.
The horticulturalists at Sarah P. Duke Gardens are busy redesigning the rose garden, one they had completely overhauled just five years ago. Ten years ago, the garden…
I do my botanizing while walking our dog. Puppy isn’t very patient, so I have to be quick about it, but I regularly manage to find interesting plants…
In the delirium of winter, I tend to go on an ordering spree of plants that will arrive the following April. It’s a good time to order because the nurseries haven’t yet run out of the hot new plants; the winter garden looks relatively bare; and there’s nothing much to do in January…
Last week I extolled the virtues of the Southern tradition of pass-along plants. Sometimes the only way to acquire a plant that is no longer at the…
Gardeners are among the most generous people in the world, eager to share their success with other plant lovers.
Sex is rampant in my garden, and I’m getting sick of it. This is the time of year that the hellebores wave around their promiscuity as the plants flaunt their swollen seedpods. Soon you begin to realize that there are probably more seeds on one hellebore than there are people in the Triangle. After a couple of years of hellebores taking up residence in the garden, you begin to fear that they will overtake the world.
It’s a dangerous world out there. In the past few weeks, Kit and I have both been injured — nothing life threatening, but ego bruising. I share this because we both know better.
I wish I could grow echinacea as I’m a great admirer of this native prairie plant. It’s a great accent plant in the perennial border, and there’s a spartan quality about it that appeals to me.
Right now, it’s all about the plants. We’ve sat inside long enough reading catalogs and cleaning our tools. Our fabulous friends are arriving at nearby garden centers, and we can’t wait to bring them home. But wait.
This past winter, I began to think that it would never stop raining. Now, rain can be a gardener’s best friend, but a rainy winter can ruin a garden. How can that be? After all, aren’t many of our plants sound asleep in winter?
As far as I am concerned, when it comes to roses, planting sustainable roses is the way to go. Do you really want to put on the zoot suits while lugging out the sprayer every 10 days just to prevent fragile roses from falling into the ravages of blackspot?
I am happily shopping for plants. To my husband’s chagrin, our kitchen table is littered with lists, dog-eared catalogs and old annotated seed packets. But I may just sweep the mess aside in favor of my new discovery. The North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service has a new online tool…
A long time ago I mentioned to a rather snobbish gardening friend that I was thinking of planting some gladioli — and met with a withering response that, “No one plants gladioli anymore.”
I love hostas — it really is that simple. I love the many varieties of hostas, extending from blue hostas to ones with red stems. The variation of their leaves, ranging from different shapes to different color patterns, enchant me.
Valentine’s Day is right around the corner and finding the right present for a gardener can be frustrating as we gardeners are an opinionated group…
By the time you read this on Monday, Feb. 1, Walter “Bucky” Horton might be out fishing, playing golf or pumping iron in the gym. That would be fitting since it’s his day. Literally, Monday, Feb. 1, is officially Police Chief Walter Horton Day…
Usually, winter’s confinement gives me time to ponder my coming garden. I flip through the arriving seed catalogs, marking pages while revising my shopping list at a leisurely pace.
Sometimes I think that daphnes take all the fun out of gardening. There can hardly be a gardener alive who hasn’t lusted in his or her heart for a Daphne odora in the middle of winter. The luscious blooms coupled with a delicious scent manage to enchant us during the month of January.
Generally, from a gardening standpoint, I enjoy the month of January. Typically, I peruse the garden catalogues that arrive this time of year, daydreaming about the possibilities my garden might produce. However, reading the garden catalogues recently has not given me a great deal of enjoyment for the simple reason that my garden, like me, is maturing.
It’s a new year, 2021, and it’s time to plan for the garden. Spring is almost here! I have written about this topic before but it bears repeating as I see gardeners twisting themselves in knots, trying to follow the rules of good landscaping: A garden needs to reflect the personality of its owner.