It was serendipitous. For a few weeks in mid-spring, my garden is the tidiest it has ever looked, thanks to an application of mulch/compost that gets put down at the beginning of every gardening season. All the winter detritus magically vanishes, leaving spring bulbs, spring-flowering perennials, and the fresh green emerging foliage of summer perennials,…
There have been FLO parties in Buffalo, New York City, Boston, Baltimore, Atlanta, and more the past few weeks. My hometown joined the fun. Louisville celebrated Frederick Law Olmsted’s (FLO) bicentennial on April 26th. Olmsted, in 1891, visited a rolling pasture and woodland, bisected by Beargrass Creek, that became the 337-acre Cherokee Park. FLO’s…
I was reminded of Christopher Lloyd ‘s fondness for unpretentious nurseries on a beautiful drive to Lexington, Kentucky, last week. My destination was the 121-year-old Michler’s Florist, Greenhouses & Garden Design. “The Michler family opened their namesake florist and nursery in 1901, and it quickly became Lexington’s go-to for flora.” –Washington Post I know…
Our home-grown snow peas bought the farm a few weeks ago, but I found agents of inspiration to take the edge off summer heat. Jared Barnes and Thomas Rainer have wonder to spare and share. Not surprising for two peas in a pod who grew up “semi-feral” playing outside. Last month, on his Plantastic…
I flew to Seattle a few weeks ago to visit my daughter Molly and her family in Bellingham, Washington—a two-hour drive north of Seattle. Give me Liberty took flight from Louisville stripped of masks and loaded with—I worried—highly transmissible subvariants. A mind-numbing, COVID-incubating slog through airports, and buckled into packed planes, ended 23 hours…
There was an illuminating Patti Smith Instagram post on August 19th entitled: “This is weeding.” The poet, musician, author, and activist had returned from a European concert tour and found her garden in Rockaway, Queens, New York, as you might expect—worrisome. “…I have no problem with the weeds, but they got a little forest…
Expect to read rants from Seattle-based Lorene Edwards Forkner starting next week. A longtime garden writer, Lorene was the first woman to edit Pacific Horticulture, a quarterly magazine focused on West Coast gardens. She also owned and operated a small specialty nursery at one time and gave design advice to gardeners looking to tame their…
The grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference. –Thomas Merton Steve Foltz In late August Steve Foltz was given the last slot at the Plant Trials Day Symposium at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden. The auditorium was packed to…
No one ever called me a nimble-fingered crafts maker. My prospects dimmed as a ten-year-old Cub Scout when our Den mother taught us how to make ashtrays. My parents, appreciative smokers, kept my folded metal art piece for years. My mother pretended it was museum worthy. No one dared soil it with cigarette butts, but…
I’m here to recommend a fascinating article about bonsai in the New Yorker – “The Beautiful, Brutal World of Bonsai” – featuring an American who undergoes a “brutal” six-year apprenticeship to a Japanese bonsai master, and his life and work back in the U.S. The apprentice is Ryan Neil, pictured above in a glamour shot…
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