Category Archives: Uncategorized

I waited three months for a California on line nursery to catch up on back orders so I could finally put Plectranthus argentatus “Longwood Silver” into a garden again. Gray foliage is elegant. It is sophisticated and it shines, and to my mind “Longwood Silver” is the finest gray leaved plant I have grown. ItsContinue reading “Longwood Silver”

We have had some unsettling weather this past week. Ninety four degree temperatures and Mississippi Delta humidity for three days followed by three days of cold rain that has battered plants and flowers into the mud. And yesterday, while sitting at my dining room table, I looked out the door into the dooryard to seeContinue reading “Bright Colors on a Gray Day”

Little Gollum, the baby Red Squirrel, is still around. He is a daredevil tree climber. He is finally getting some red fur, but it has taken a month. He is so used to me that he lets me get close for pictures. These are the first summer bloomers of 2021. Except for the Globe ThistleContinue reading “Update on Baby Red Squirrel”

There are ten coneflowers in my sister’s lower garden. The garden drops off steeply into a field of five foot ferns. Does and fawns hide in these ferns, and all one can see are the doe’s ears. Now the Internet, quoting universities and suspect sources, says that deer avoid coneflowers, and urges the gardener notContinue reading “Ask Real Gardeners, not the Internet and its Content Farms”

These are photos taken today in my sister’s garden in Bow. The flowers and plants are pass-a-long New England favorites collected by my sister, and some newer additions. The following plants are newer perennials I added to this garden. This Campanula enchants my sister. In two years it has formed a patch that has triedContinue reading “Two Gardens. June 14, 2021”

Above is my first flower on Marigold “Cempazuchitl”, a large African Tagetes which is grown in Mexico to use as a floral symbol on The Day of the Dead November 1st. The plant has an open, rangy ,skeletal look and large pompon blossoms. I bought three plants from Annie’s Annuals in California, and now haveContinue reading “June 12 Blooms. Old Favorites and Exotics.”

Last year the Late Purple aster bloomed in my front yard garden. It was growing up against the side of the house, and when I dug up a garden bed there, I left it alone, not certain what it was. Another grew on the hillside just above my dry flower bed, and I believe itContinue reading “A Threatened Aster- Aster patens”

Nashville was too hot for Blue Lobelia, but I am hoping it will weather the short summer here. Everyone sells it, and it seems to be a real window box favorite. I suppose one could edge with it in open ground, but I do not care to see tiny, delicate plants spattered by rain ,Continue reading “Early Bloom in Containers”

I went to Bow this morning to take some rescued ferns and Siberian iris to my sister, and found the antique iris we moved from the shade beside the driveway two years ago in full bloom. These are not today’s showy, frilled, massive plants, but forgotten cultivars from years ago that survived root borers andContinue reading “Old Timey Iris”

When I lived in New Hampshire early in life I never saw the American Columbine growing, and it was in Tennessee at The Narrows of the Harpeth State Park that I saw it first on the limestone cliffs above the river. Yet I found it yesterday, growing on the verge along Gregg Mill Road. ThereContinue reading “Three Wildflowers and a Rose”