MOTHER NATURE'S GARDEN
New apps for field work
Not too many years ago, hiking meant carrying a heavy backpack filled with my favorite field guides – some for plants, some for mushrooms and ...
Not too many years ago, hiking meant carrying a heavy backpack filled with my favorite field guides – some for plants, some for mushrooms and ...
Hi there, it’s me, Uschi, my mom’s best garden helper. She’s busy reading seed catalogs and making lists of plants that she doesn’t need and ...
A good part of last year was spent hiking with a list of plants that needed to be documented in various counties. For example, common ...
Americans have been having a love affair with Christmas trees for more than 150 years. German settlers introduced the first Christmas trees in the mid-1800s. ...
Here it is early November and I’m still nursing along a pepper plant because I’m curious about its fruit. Almost everyone in my family is ...
It’s been so hot and dry that I decided Oct. 4 would be my last major hike before the skunk cabbages emerge in late December. ...
While mucking about in a swampy area at Holliday Lake State Park last month, I stumbled upon an odd looking little plant that I had ...
Over the years, I’ve gotten lots of questions about gardening. Most are the usual ones — when to plant potatoes, how to grow sweet potato ...
In the early days of the commonwealth, the naming of rivers was arbitrary. Settlers along a particular waterway named it whatever they pleased. For example, ...
You’ve heard of Crimson Tide? Well, last month I had a red tide running through my kitchen. Way back in early spring, I prepped my ...
The wedding is fast approaching — Labor Day weekend. Invitations have been sent, responses have been tallied, accommodations and transportation have been arranged; even the ...
It’s been so hot that my hikes have been reduced to half-hearted slogs up and down the back roads near my farm. No enthusiasm and ...
There are some native plants that I just can’t keep straight in my head unless I see the leaves and the flowers together. Wood betony, ...
Mention luxurious food and most people think of heaping servings of beluga caviar, raw sea urchins, foie gras, kopi luwak coffee or other expensive, hard-to-find ...
I don’t know exactly how it happened, but, at nearly 72, I find myself managing two homes and gardens — one in town and the ...
Wildflower people are both incredibly generous and seriously obsessive. This spring I’ve been the recipient of untold generosity. It’s common knowledge that everyone loves lady’s ...
Some gardeners have very inflexible opinions about how their gardens should look; they insist on imposing their will on nature. Others take stock of what ...
In my ongoing rambles in the woods, I visit new places every year, but I also return to the same areas over and over every ...
Walk across any unkempt lawn (mine!), waste area or woodland clearing this month and you’ll find basal rosettes of dark green and purple leaves that ...
In most families when a daughter brings home a serious boyfriend and announces her engagement, there is an immediate flurry of activity related to dresses, ...
By late February, most of us are so desperate for early signs of spring that we’re overjoyed to find henbit and purple dead nettle infesting ...
About every six weeks, I get a text from someone I know. It contains only a photo of a very sad looking house plant. No ...
We gardeners just naturally share plants. In fact, it’s not unusual for someone to have what’s fondly known as a pass-along garden. You know the ...
When people on my Facebook wildflower page talk about plants, there can be massive confusion. Many of them are intimidated by scientific names so they ...
Visit that massive stone heap, Blenheim Palace, in October and you’ll find the walls near the main entrance and clock tower glowing red in the ...
January is usually all about reading seed catalogs by a roaring fire and making endless wish lists of new exotic plants that I absolutely must ...
It’s early December and the shortest day of the year is upon us. The air is frosty before dawn and the ground is getting cold. ...