Getting to the Root of the Matter – with Sweet Peas

When coming home from my day job I pass a house that has all kinds of metal garden decor for sale on the front lawn. There are metal birds, trees, obelisks, and beautiful large metal flowers. I've also seen this metal garden art at craft shows, and it can be quite expensive. I thought that I could make my own scaled down (and inexpensive) versions of the flowers by collecting some thrifted items and putting them together. I love that every flower will be one of a kind, and the possibilities are really endless.

Today’s guest, Erik Keller, has practiced horticultural therapy for more than 20 years, using plants and nature to help clients from cancer patients to special needs children and disabled seniors, to help them cope and to make positive life changes. He’s also author of“A Therapist’s Garden: Using Plants to Revitalize Your Spirit” (affiliate link).Erik’s a master gardener and manages the gardens and horticultural therapy program at Ann’s Place in Danbury, Connecticut, an organization assisting cancer patients and their families.We don’t need to be in a formal horticultural therapy program, though. Erik wants to remind each of us of the power of what we

The ground is undisturbed. Maybe it’s in a forest, in a city park, or in your front yard. The moment is quiet. But the air is charged. It’s fueled by the energy of an impending change and the promise of a new legacy. Then, the silence is cracked open by the slice of a shovel breaking through the seal of the earth. The soil gives way, making room for the gentle roots of a young tree. 

Show me the gardener who isn’t seduced by the sight and smell of a climbing rose in full and heady June bloom. And why not? It’s a particularly seductive mixture of perfume and colour that’s always guaranteed to pull at the heartstrings, reminding us of the beauty of the summer garden as well as its fleeting nature.

Lately, we’re seeing a flood of fashions made from lacy fabrics in pastels, sometimes even bedecked with bows. This trend towards delightfully delicate and unabashedly girly is the coquette aesthetic, and this trend hasn’t only been prevalent in high fashion—it’s also hit the mainstream on TikTok, with views for videos of the coquette aesthetic topping an astounding 1.3 billion (yes, billion!).

A new book I’ve been reading called “These Trees Tell A Story: The Art of Reading Landscapes” (affiliate link) takes the reader along on explorations through a diversity of places looking for hints on how to know the land as its author, Noah Charney, suggests.Noah is an assistant professor of conservation biology at the University of Maine and co-author with Charley Eiseman of the award-winning field guide “Tracks

You may know Nancy Lawson as “The Humane Gardener” (also the title of her previous book). She has a new book out called “Wildscape” (affiliate links) that asks us to adjust our senses to take into account everyone out there whose world it is—everyone else whose world it is, and was, before we intervened.Nancy Lawson is a naturalist and a habitat consultant based in Maryland who promotes animal-friendly plant strategies and challenges us to sharpen our awareness that we’re not alone out there. (Above, a spring mome

Marianne Willburn, a longtime garden writer who gardens in Virginia, is a contributing editor to the collaborative blog called Garden Rant. And she’s also author of the 2021 book “Tropical Plants and How to Love Them” (affiliate link). She offered guidance on which of these tempting tropicals at the garden center to indulge in for the combination of visual and culinary enjoyment, like ‘Snowdrift’ turmeric in her garden, above.Plus: Enter to win a copy of the book by commenting in the box at the bottom of the page.Read along as you listen to the March 27, 2023 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on Apple Podcasts (iTunes) or Spotify or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here)

Although a few pests here and there do not cause much harm, if you leave the problem untreated, it can multiply and make an ugly mess. Panic not! Check out our post on Common Houseplant Pests and How to Get Rid of Them!

Fruit flies are some of the most persistent and annoying tiny insects you’ll ever come across. They’re a close match to mosquitos!

TRIA GIOVAN PHOTOGRAPHY

Adam Albright