One of my most favorite bands ever, like of all time, in the whole wide world, has a new album out in May. I can’t wait. Meanwhile, here’s a sample. (Minds out of the gutter! This is a family blog! Their name is a reference to a satirical Japanese film.) Seu browser não suporta iframes. [...]

Observe the southern magnolia, seen here in a ubiquitous piece by artist Martin Johnson Heade, one that appears over mantels and sofas and elsewise in places of import in more Mississippi homes than you can imagine — more than you might imagine, in this modern age, where we value irony so. Magnolia is the everlasting [...]

Cardoon! What better a name for a plant, I say? What better name for anything? It’s a word, for me, that conjures up Ye Olden Days of Olde English Gardening, that golden era of gardening when a plant so spiky, so silvery, so deserving of appreciation truly must’ve gotten its due. Well, times have changed, [...]

So the first official day of spring came and went, and let me tell you, I get VERY restless this time of year. It’s a good time to get lost someplace, whether it’s someplace local, some exotic destination, an intense work project, or even just a book. I seem to have spent a lot of [...]

I am, shall we say, particular about color. Remember how Sally ordered pie in When Harry Met Sally? That’s me with color. Example: my front garden is meant to be naturalistic and evoke cottage gardens, but it’s a far, FAR more controlled affair colorwise. Blues and purples are key in bloom and in leaf, as [...]

Tomorrow’s Garden Designers Roundtable topic is color! So of course I had to post the first color-related song that jumps to MY mind. Seu browser não suporta iframes. Tune in for more tomorrow, 1 p.m. EDT!

Lately, like once a week, I hear about Doug Tallamy’s Bringing Nature Home. First it was my Connecticut designer friend Scott Hokunson, then I noticed Tallamy was speaking at two conferences I wanted to go to, then again in the newsletter of Plants Nouveau president Angela Treadwell Palmer. I’m accredited in organic land care through [...]

“The infernal rattling of the rain still remains…” 8.5 inches of it so far. More than a few are in our basement, unnervingly close. I don’t like it, not one bit. Seu browser não suporta iframes. Buy this album on Amazon* → *Amazon Associates link. If you buy, you support the artist, and you support [...]

There’s something wildly appealing about the horticultural tableau of the roadside, when it isn’t taken up by invasive species. From Texas to Florida and up to Massachusetts, Baccharis halimifolia, the groundsel tree, is one plant I’m always glad to see growing by the highway.

The grass family is called Poaceae. It also goes by Gramineae, because it’s just that cool. It’s the fourth largest plant family, behind: Orchidaceae, the orchids; Asteraceae, the asters; and Fabaceae, the pea family, which we discussed in my last installment of this series. There are over 10,000 species of grasses. Stop to consider that [...]