Behind posts, articles, conferences and social media, there’s a backstory. Have you kept up with the digital correspondence between Ranters Scott Beuerlein and Marianne Willburn?  You can start here, or go back and find the entire correspondence at Dear Gardener. Caye Caulker, Belize 20 April 2024 Dear Scott, A handwritten letter today for you from lands more distant than Virginia. I will type it up later if all goes well and I am not eaten by bull sharks while snorkeling this week.  With these words I am officially on my seventh attempt at pen meeting paper. We’ll see how th ..read more

Packera aurea (a/k/a golden groundsel or golden ragwort) in my garden; azaleas at the National Arboretum Ever been excited about a new plant until you saw what was blooming nearby at the same time and the color combo almost made you retch? Sounds extreme, but that was my reaction to seeing the golden blooms of Packera aurea among the (can we say garish?) blooms of azaleas. So I moved the Packera to a spot with no competing blooms but in clear view from my porch, and LOVED them there.  A perennial native to the Eastern half of the U.S., Packera likes shade just fine and is even evergree ..read more

We live fairly near The Laskett. So seeing it was open, we thought we’d have an afternoon out and went to visit. And we took lots of photos – so thanks to Charles for his contributions. Introduction Sir Roy has donated the place to Perennial, the Gardeners’ Benevolent Fund, after rejection by the National Trust. Here is further background to the creation of the garden in an interview with the director of the Garden Museum. And the garden has a book  And here is the plan of the four acre garden: You can see it is both full of formality and, well, full. There are many small gardens, cli ..read more

When I wrote that I was confused by conflicting info online about stem-besting bees and how gardeners can help them, Amy Campion left an instructive comment and offered to guest-post about it for our readers.  Naturally I jumped on her offer and the result is this terrific report, based on years of doing and observing in an actual garden!  Susan You want to do the right thing. You know whacking perennials to the ground can harm bees and other beneficial insects overwintering inside the stems. You want to do better. So, you do your research, but all you can find on bee-safe pruning i ..read more

Many years ago, in a family backyard in Alhambra, California, a 17 year old boy started propagating Camellias with the help of his mother and father. That young man’s name was Julius Nuccio. Over the last 89 years, since 1935, the Nuccio family have been responsible for growing, breeding and introducing some of the most iconic Camellias in the world. It doesn’t matter if it’s white, pink or red, large-flowered or small; if it came from Nuccio’s it’s going to be good. Flamboyant Camellia ‘Guilio Nuccio’, released in 1955 The Nuccio name will soon pass into horticultural history. The current ..read more

Do you really “see” the gardens you visit?   I mean, do you see what the creator of that space wanted you to see?   Do you see it the same way others do? Maybe. At times we may all have unseeing eyes.  We look.  But we don’t really see . . . appreciate . . . what’s in front of us.  This is what Henry David Thoreau was driving toward when he observed: “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”    Seeing What You Were Intended to Notice If you’re experienced in the gardening style of the place you’re visiting, you may not need any g ..read more

                            April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. TS Eliot From The Wasteland.           I know – everyone quotes this as April arrives, for a dozen different reasons. I beg to be excused: I love The Wasteland, because I studied it for ‘A’ level at school. It reminds me of the joy and reward that comes from close study – in that case of a text. Just think what riches there are out there, wh ..read more

Sustainability in urban horticulture is loaded with contradictions. Some of the projects taking place, and often the money that goes into them, makes it seem as if many of the precepts of sustainable urban landscapes are anything but. You’ve got solar panels covering farms (and gardens) and farms and gardens going on roofs. Plants hanging on walls like drapes, dependant on pumps moving water and carefully calculated chemical brews flowing through them like a bloodstream. Repurposed warehouses packed with state of the art lighting systems subsidized by foundations producing crops of boutique b ..read more

Never mind how many years I’ve been digging in this garden I still don’t think of myself as an “expert.” Experienced, long-suffering, and a relentless optimist, yes. Expert? Not even close. Yet, compared to my digital life, I’m a freaking genius in my analog garden. The closest I get to technology in the garden is a drip system — and timer (!!!) — that I set up a few years ago when my husband had Covid and I was forced out of the house. I’m not going to say how long it took me to lessen hours and hours at the end of a hose to finally make my life just a tiny bit easier. Hint: think time in do ..read more

Amsonia hubrichtii, center right, in the fall, not long before they started falling over. When I recently wrote about which leaves it’s best NOT to leave on top of which plants, I also confessed to confusion over the question of leaving stems intact for stem-nesting bees.  The consensus seems to be that whenever you cut them, it’s best for bees to cut them back to varying heights from about 8 to 24 inches, and leave them in place indefinitely – because it’s not until the stems’ SECOND YEAR that young bees emerge from hibernation there. But if for some reason it doesn’t work for you or ..read more