When we bought our house over thirty years ago, the common orange daylily, Hemerocallis fulva, appeared in spots all around the property. Therefore I knew they would grow anywhere I planted them in the landscape. I dug them all up…
The garden historian John Dixon Hunt is the editor of a series of books called "The English Landscape Garden." The goal of the book series is to provide "examples of the important literature of the English landscape garden movement together…
How well I remember the Smith College annual Fall Chrysanthemum Show in Northampton, Massachusetts. It runs for a few weeks in November. The show is certainly worth a visit. The number of plants in various arrangements and the colors of the flower…
Twenty years ago I began my research on James Vick, the nineteenth-century Rochester, New York seed merchant. The more I read about him, the more interesting he became as a Victorian writer, horticulturist, and marketer, all rolled up into one…
I just finished reading Judith Taylor’s wonderful garden history book Visions of Loveliness: Great Flower Breeders of the Past. She tells a fascinating tale of nineteenth century plant hunting and breeding that changed the practice of horticulture both in Europe and the…