This time of year I wonder in vain how snowdrops and crocuses push up through frozen ground with their slender stalks and flowers (that looks so strongly colored by contrast with the preceding colorless, gray months--Spring at last). I don't know how they do it, but here they are, followed quickly by the end of cabin fever. I... ...see more

The garden is in two phases as once. The snows flattened the leaves of the hellebores and ice still has them stuck them to the ground. Though the surface of the ground is still frozen, the snowdrops and crocuses have found a way to rise into the clear. Maybe they make their own heat, like a skunk cabbage, and bore through the... ...see more

This tree sprouted in a crack between a sidewalk and a retaining wall so it has problems: not much room for roots and not much for trunk. The trunk is already flowing around the rim of the retaining wall. What will happen when the trunk grows against the retaining wall? It's already close and I was surprised that the bark was... ...see more

Streams flow, tapwater flows, ideas flow, the glass in the windows of your house flows too. Oh yes, glass flows. Very slowly. In old houses (let's say 150 years old) that still have original windows, gravity has pulled the glass down enough that the glass has puddled at the bottom, usually in the form or horizontal ripples that... ...see more

European ginger has been a terrific groundcover for me. Its smooth, round leaves reflect the sky and arrange themselves in a low, glossy carpet. There's a photo here of full-grown leaves crowding politely together.
Early in Spring, just as the new leaves reach full height (2.5 inches?) flowers appear, or rather, appear invisibly... ...see more

There's a lively thread of comments about heat-tolerat tomatoes in the Forum. Botanical Brain started it with a question about the best tomatoes for hot climates, Melissa Ramos jumped in (she gardened through two dry months over 100 degrees last year in Texas) and Pollinator added the results of his tomato trials. A big thrill... ...see more

These days, I occasionally think my garden is a little overgrown, which means an opportunity to shrink plants by dividing them and to spread cheer by giving the divisions to neighbors.  So that's on my Spring agenda.
However, it turns out my garden is more than a little overgrown, judging by photos I chanced to find in my confusing... ...see more

As the world shrinks and people and goods from afar land on our doorstep, diseases and pests that once lived only in China or Europe have crossed the oceans and found a land of plenty free of their natural enemies. Their numbers grow vastly and native species suffer. Dutch Elm disease. Chestnut blight, Japanese beetle, gypsy... ...see more

Another note about the toll of winter on trees. The same wet snow that sagged and snapped power lines last month reminded all us in this old neighborhood of an old lesson. Plant trees far from power lines. Far. A tree at twenty years old is still a teenager. At sixty years it's still growing. In my neighborhood most of the trees... ...see more

Here in Iowa, we get snows that are so wet that the flakes stick to everything--power lines, branches, the needles of conifers, cars. When such a snow is also heavy, meaning measurable at six inches or more, the weight of the buildup pulls down branches, bends evergreens upside doesn, pins low branches to the ground and worse,... ...see more

My two favorite groundcovers (most of the time) are curly chives, which you can see here in my garden, and here in the plant database of yourgardenshow.com, and European ginger, which has fleshy stems that creep along the ground with roots popping out and plunging straight down and leaves popping out close together (see photos... ...see more

In a moment of nostalgia (or cabin fever), I looked back at Halloween and found two photos of clever, scary yard creatures, one made of mystery stuff. They are in the garden called "The 'Hood." Click here for the photos.There's nothing in the garden these days to photograph now except snow and foraging critters that I feel sorry... ...see more

Some times of the garden year I can point the camera almost anywhere and make a photo that says, here's the moment, it's all here, do you remember?
This is one of those moments. The first few leaves of the silver maple that extends high over the deck have turned and fallen. The garden is still green, but Fall is near.
Loulou sweeps... ...see more

Now that Winter has arrived here in Iowa (after skipping us last year), I can't post news fresh from the garden, nor fresh photos (unless you are eager to see lots of snow). So I plan to amble in my photo archives for the next two months or more and see what I find that might be inspiring for everyone.
Here's the first discovery.... ...see more

Lily-of-the-Valley slots in the category of desireable plants that have to be monitored and restrained. There's not much to it above ground--just lance-shaped leaves crowded together every which way like subway passengers. The leaves turn brown and wither to the ground in late fall. In spring new shoots come up like green spear... ...see more