Stories About Gardening
Deer Moss and Gum Drop Trees
December means hiking into a special dry place in our woods. It’s a bald spot, open and dry and sunny. A magic carpet of deer moss yields spongy with each step. Silvery green carpet colors, climb the little haw trees too. Lichens, with silver leaves. Only lichens are not plants, so they don’t have leaves. …
Read MoreDeer Moss and Gum Drop Trees
December means hiking into a special dry place in our woods. It’s a bald spot, open and dry and sunny. A magic carpet of deer moss yields spongy with each step. Silvery green carpet colors, climb the little haw trees too. Lichens, with silver leaves. Only lichens are not plants, so they don’t have leaves. …
Read MoreThe Otherside of the Web Page
I’d like to introduce you to three fellas who keep our website running. They are important in our life. And in your life too. Without the guys who do tedious, frustrating and creative web stuff, I couldn’t focus on growing good bulbs, nor could you read about or buy them for your garden. What’s behind…
Read MorePeter Pan Might Live Here!
This is our design studio. And it’s where interns get to live. Someone described it recently, saying I had “a Peter Pan Thing’ going on in here. What’s that mean? Tom Hall and I built this place. More accurately we rebuilt our old woodshed, with the help of lots of volunteers, friends, a cob expert,…
Read MoreI Will Survive! Flowers for a Disco Queen
When a horticulturist (or anyone) comes up with a new plant, they get to name the plant. Older, more genteel generations named plants to honor their wives or Alma-matter. Think of Azalea ‘Mrs. G.G. Gerbing’ or ‘Clemson Spineless’ Okra. When I found a special crinum, I got my first chance at naming. Decades ago, I’d…
Read MoreTom’s Notes on Purple Martins
This is our second spring with our purple martins. Last year the first birds arrived on February 27th. It was a thrill this year when our first purple martin was a day earlier on February 26th. The rich, gurgling call heralds spring even more than the robins, who had been here for weeks. Our purple…
Read MoreWinter Cover Crops for Farm, Yard or City Garden.
On the farm, we do all the work by hand; no tractors, no plows, no till. Our crew includes interns, volunteer kids from down the dirt road, city cousins and some well trained farm animals. But we also use plants to do lots of work. All year long, cover crops do the tilling, pest control,…
Read MoreMaking Art with Garden Trash
My grandfather painted. My father made furniture. I make gardens. Three generations of artists, and we have a lot in common. Including waste. The waste of artists has always fascinated me: uniform ends of wood, those squeezed tubes of oil paint, discarded drawings, even sawdust. The waste from gardens enthralls me. It’s fuzzy. The distinction…
Read MoreA Good Excuse to Write
Why would a wildlife conservation magazine ask me to write for them? I don’t get it either — kept thinking it was some sort of scam. “Could you write on how gardening soothes the restless soul?”, they asked. Well that just struck a cord and I wrote a very person story. It’s in their magazine,…
Read MoreSalvaging Spectacular Sabal Palms
Performance Anxiety You’d think gardening might be a stress free job. But right now, I feel dread like a hole below my chest that you could put a 3-gallon nursery pot through. This upcoming job has no little 3-gallon pots though. We’re moving two, 50+year old, 30 feet tall, spectacular Sabal palms. And it’s going…
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