I picked up a recent issue of Horticulture magazine, a periodical I enjoy reading to keep updated on gardening trends. Within the first few pages I saw an ad for the English company Hartley Botanic, purveyor of greenhouses, and also…
Last week while I visited the Chicago Botanic Garden, I had lunch and then stopped in at the Gift Shop. Often I find treasures surface in a such a Shop when least expected. And so it happened. The Shop had…
Last week on my trip to the Midwest I had an opportunity to visit the Chicago Botanic Garden. The size of the garden takes your breath away. In addition, the many separate areas of plants in the garden amid extensive…
Plant collecting has always been a passion for gardeners. The nineteenth century American seed and nusery catalogs often wrote about new plant varieties called 'novelties' in hopes that the customer would buy. Must have worked because the catalogs made that…
Reading garden history has helped me to understand gardening today. In his new book American Eden Wade Graham reaffirms what I have often written about here. Nineteenth century American landscape designer Andrew Jackson Downing (1815-1852) became a voice for the ideas…