The native rhododendron has fascinated me for many years. I look forward to its late May and early June blooms. Our native rhododendron, however, played a greater part in the English garden in the nineteenth century than our own. Philadelphia…
A couple of weeks ago I attended a conference in New York. While there I made sure to allow time for a garden stroll through High Line. High Line is a new public park built on a former 1.45-mile-long elevated…
American gardeners fell in love with annuals after 1850 during our own Victorian period. The use of perennials in the garden fell off until later in the century when they became stylish with the encouragement of English garden authorties William…
Every gardener feels the need to buy the latest variety of plant. That feeling is built into the gardener's profile. Philadelphia seedsman Thomas Meehan wrote in the 1868 issue of his magazine Gardener's Monthly: "No matter how small the flower-garden…
This is the time of the year the purple flowers of the wisteria vine put on their show. America's most famous wisteria has to be the one that climbs thirty feet up the side of President John Adams' house, part of…