remembering my man jack

Georg Arends was a German nurseryman who bred many perennial plants. His business was successful until the second world war and has been regenerated to be one of the oldest in Europe. It still remains within the Arends family.

It is not quite red enough to be Lancastrian but I am happy to call it ‘a rambler from Manchester way’ in tribute to the old folk song (and the very old folk of Lancashire). You knew there may be a sting in the tail!

Janet Campbell Brayson,  10th February 1951 to 6th May 2023

A NOTHER SELECTION FROM MY EARLIEST PROSE, circa 1961, unearthed in a bout of housecleaning here this winter. This one earned me a star (which seems just right for a penmanship exercise about space travel), and marked the day the first American, Alan Shepard (who in 1971 would walk on the moon) went up in space.

WHAT DO YOU SEE WHEN YOU LOOK AT A FLOWER? Is the image altered by your particular point of view–whether that of an artist, scientist, or honeybee? I think it helps to be one part of each (which to me is what it means to be a gardener–to witness nature from all those perspectives at once, no?). The latest video by Canadian filmmaker Reid Gower overlays the words of the late Nobel physicist Richard Feynman with images of immeasurable beauty, and touches on those questions and more.

I HAD A DAYLONG ADVENTURE back to New York City recently, when Debbie Millman, chair of the School of Visual Arts’ master’s program in Branding and creator of the podcast show “Design Matters,” invited me to her studio to record. Though Millman is still very much in the thick of it—not a dropout gardener by any means!—she’d read my recent book, and wanted to talk about a range of things from my history as a serial college dropout, to my love of gardening, my days at Martha Stewart, the importance of stillness—and what my Girl Scout sash still means to me.

I WENT SHOPPING SATURDAY at a giant annual plant fair nearby, making a beeline to the bromeliad department, a.k.a. the booth of Dave Burdick’s Daffodils and More.

MY GARDEN MENTOR’S NAME is Marco Stufano, and so when, in a Google search for something botanical, I happened on a result that said “Stefano Mancuso,” I just had to click. Had they jumbled my Marco’s name? No; it yielded a 2010 TED Talk by an Italian plant scientist, and though not the answer to what I had been seeking, it perfectly summed up how I (and Marco) feel about plants.

I CONFESS: It’s true love–between me and Jack the Demon Cat, that is. But as with any couple, sometimes we need some distance.

A candid head’s up: Like Jeff, I am less-than-enthusiastic about the seemingly widespread desire among gardeners to shop their way out of issues with pests, disease, or soil imbalances. I buy a lot of seeds and bulbs and plants–but not a lot of “stuff.”Jeff and I had a funny email exchange, when I invited him to join me on the radio show and podcast, and asked about what topics he’d most like to cover together.“The topics that I speak on most frequently are garden remedies and thoughtful organic gardening,” Jeff replied. When I read that, my slightly dark humor zoomed in on the phrase “thoughtful organic gardening.”Except I thought he said, “thoughtless organic gardening.” I g

I’m feeling daring, so I specifically called Timothy Tilghman, a former colleague at Martha Stewart Living, who is now horticulturist at the much-heralded Untermyer Park and Gardens in Yonkers, New York, just minutes north of New York City. The property has quickly become a destination for gardeners, a getaway where visitors are wowed by bold, contemporary plantings—including ones in containers—in a dramatic, historic setting.A century ago, in 1915, Samuel Untermyer hired William Welles Bosworth, an Ecole des Beaux Arts-trained architect and landscape designer who designed Kykuit for the Rockefellers, to create the “greatest gardens in the world.” Soon after, they began exe

David, also known as the Xeric Gardener, is chief horticulturist of High Country Gardens in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The former garden center, now closed, began in 1984, but you can visit anytime online, or in the print catalog (published since 1993; the catalog-request form is here).I first met David through my work years ago at Martha Stewart Living, in the days when almost nobody even knew what terms like or water wise, let alone xeric or even sustainable meant as they pertained to our gardens. I’ve been thrilled and impressed to watch David teach and inspire the nation–earning the