A big old copper beech tree is a focal point of my garden, and each time I look out the window at it admiringly these days, I feel the same love and gratitude I always have for its grandeur –... Read More ›

Today we’re going to do some pruning, but not the same old straight-forward kind. Instead we’re going to talk topiary, and its transformative powers – not just on the plant that is the subject that’s getting clipped, or on the... Read More ›

Some of us plant a row of particular annuals with the intention to cut them for bouquets in their moment of bloom – and some of us think bigger have a whole cutting garden within our landscape. I feel like... Read More ›

We may know one when we see it, but what word best describes an ecological landscape? Compared to traditional, more formal gardens, such native-plant-forward designs are variously labeled as looser, or naturalistic, or wildish—all perfectly accurate. Is there perhaps a... Read More ›

I’ve answered a lot of garden questions in my time as a garden journalist, but nobody has asked more of them than today’s guest—who’s also the person I’ve known longer than anyone else on the planet. My baby sister, Marion... Read More ›

Again and again, as I was reading the recent book “Bad Naturalist” by Paula Whyman, I kept thinking: Good thing I only have a couple of acres of land. Whyman tackled 200 acres on a Virginia mountaintop, dreaming of reshaping... Read More ›

The first issue of “American Gardener,” the newly redesigned member magazine of the American Horticultural Society, arrived recently, and in it are lots of good reads—including an article by today’s guest, Nancy Lawson, aka “The Humane Gardener.”  She writes about... Read More ›

When I first started gardening, it wasn’t unusual to hear other gardeners lamenting the shady areas of their landscapes – wishing for more, more, more sun. But my friend Ken Druse never looked at the lower-light areas that way –... Read More ›

Woody plants—the trees and shrubs—can be pure ecological powerhouses, but most of us don’t have room for an entire forest in our backyards. So on a garden scale, which shrubs in particular really get the job done best? Dan Wilder, a longtime native plant... Read More ›

I look forward to spring for many reasons, not the least of which is the emergence and bloom time of the trilliums. There’s a saying that good things come in threes, and trilliums are certainly proof of that.  I talked... Read More ›