Why is it that right now you see chrysanthemums for sale everywhere? The colors are pretty steady. Yellow, orange, white, red, and purple, sometimes with combinations in the colors, seem to dominate. The chrysanthemum has been part of our flower…
What I like about gladioli is that they are tall and showy. Brent Elliott writes about them in his book Flora: An Illustrated History of the Garden Flower. He says, "The first South African gladioli were introduced into England by…
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 debate about America's dependence on the English in learning how to garden has a long history. That sense of homage to the English garden appeared in an American garden book from 1909. For some time I have wanted to…
The French garden book called in its English translation The Retir'd Gardner first appeared in 1706. The purpose for the translation was to help English gardeners learn from the French who showed a passion for flower gardens in the seventeenth…