‘spring personified:’ the cowslip, or primula veris

How to Naturalize Spring Flower Bulbs in the Landscape

Primula is a genus with over 500 species and numerous hybrids, divided into 30+ sections.

Here in the UK it feels very much like the depth of a wet winter. It is gwetting a bit lighter in the morning and there is little colour in the garden. It’s hard to imagine in a few more weeks, the garden will spring to life. I hope the gardener springs into life too!

It is still be very cold and dank in some  parts of the UK but the flowers hint that spring has finally sprung. It has been a stuttering start for 2018 and the ground is still fearfully wet and therefore very cold.

No other plant native to South Carolina has such fragrant and beautiful spring blooms and stunning fall color as the witch-alders. Fothergilla was named after Dr. John Fothergill, an English physician and gardener who funded the travels of John Bartram through the Carolinas in the 1700’s. These beautiful shrubs have been planted in both American and English gardens for over 200 years, including gardens of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

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Quick backstory: You may remember Charley, co-author of my most-used field guide “Tracks and Sign of Insects and Other Invertebrates,” from our recent interview about galls and leaf mines, two of his specialties.(I’m giving away two more copies; enter by commenting in the form way down at the bottom of this page, after reading the entry details in the tinted box just before that. The book can help you to know what you are seeing when you look closer, too—kind of like always having Charley by your side.)When that story ran, Charley had noticed a photo I used to accompany it–of a squiggly “leaf mine” I’d observed in my Asian-native big-leaved perennial called Petasites. He’d wondered if it was caused by the insect that feeds in a few different genera in the tribe Senecioneae (including some native American botanical cousins of Petasites).  Why don’t you come try to find out, I’d suggested—and while you’re here, why don’t we have a

Click on the first thumbnail to start the show, and toggle from slide to slide by using the arrows. Note: You may have to scroll to find the arrows below the verticals, in particular. Enjoy.What are all these images, and where did they come from suddenly? My beloved Nebraskan-English-Transplant correspondent explains (imagine this with an accent if you can):“My mum has begu

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.

The numbers on a fertilizer bag are the so-called N-P-K ratio, the percent of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potash (or potassium, chemical symbol K) inside the bag. Simply speaking, nitrogen is for green growth; phosphorus is for roots, flowers, and fruit; potash is for general vigor and disease resistance. A so-called balanced fertilizer, often recommended in books, is one that has equal percentages of each element.With chemical fertilizers, the numbers are much higher than with organic formulations. A standard is 10-10-10 or 5-10-5, meaning there are those percentages of each element in the bag (the rest is filler). You won’t find those totals in any organic formulation. In fact, if the total of the three numbers on a so-called organic or natural bag adds up to more than 15, I’m suspicious. Unless blood meal—an organic material very high i

I was already thinking about succulents, after writing a story about succulent-wreath how-to with Katherine Tracey of Avant Gardens. Remember? (That’s another of her creations up top: a box of succulents, meant to be hung vertically, like a framed mini wall garden. Here’s Katherine’s how-to on making a mini-wall garden.) Then during spring garden cleanup, I noticed that some Sedum ‘Angelina’ (a gold-colored, ferny-textured groundcover type) had fallen out of a big pot I’d placed on the terrace last summer, and planted itself in the gravel surface, and the surrounding stone wall. (Again, those succulent voices: “Hint. Hint.”)The next nudge came when I spontaneously pulled into a garden center last month—one I’d never been to—only to find an irresistibly low price on overstuffed pots of hens and chicks. I brought home a bunch.And then the final push: At Trade Secrets, the big annual benefit garden show held in nearby Sharon, Connecticut, it was as if someone had announced a theme: Every vendor seemed to be featuring succulents in one way or another.Dave Burdick (remember him?) of Daffodils and More in Dalton, Massachusetts, whose specialties include not just rare

IT’S THAT TIME OF YEAR: Everybody’s got an Urgent Garden Question (or 20!). What better place to ask them than in person at one of my upcoming events? The car and I start another run starting tomorrow morning with an appearance at my favorite plant sale, Trade Secrets in Sharon, Connecticut, before we head north for Manchester Center, Vermont, for an evening lecture (whoosh)! And there many other stops in the weeks ahead, too—including a much-overdue one at the historic home of The Fabulous Beekman Boys and their adorable goats:Saturday, May 14, 9-11 AM: Garden Q&A’s and book signing at Trade Secrets, Sharon, CT.