Posts Tagged ‘stewardship’
The 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 MoreSand Dune Meadow; A Plea for Stewardship in Gardening
Our beautiful barrier islands have been landscaped beyond recognition. Typical “landscapes” seem designed to demonstrate that people can dominate nature. We can. We do. For a moment in time. But in making and keeping up typical landscapes, we’re doing harm to the life on the islands, in the soil and in the water. We can…
Read MorePlants for Deep South Meadows
You know those meadows that you see in magazines? The ones that beckon pick-nickers with knee high whispering grasses and painterly masses of wildflowers? The kind of meadow you might skip through, roll in, take off your shirt and nap with your dog in? In the Deep South, we only have those in calendars and…
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 MoreParking Lots Become Parking Gardens
Form might follow function. But too often in designing parking lots, many important functions get ignored. In parking lots, nothing but parking and getting customers in the door seems to matter. Whatever happened to the very important functions of pedestrian safety, rainwater run off, shading cars and providing beauty? And whatever happend to the function…
Read MoreFarmer Explains Why He Changed to No-till Tractors
No-till agriculture helps stop our huge, hidden erosion issues. There are all sorts of advantages (and a few disadvantages). No-till is a serious change in our food production. I often tell gardeners that even at home, we need to go no-till too. Most of our garden design and installation is no-till. Our little organically managed…
Read MoreLilies & Nocturnal Seduction. There’s a word for that and it’s a silly, fun, lovely word…..
As nights warm up, a flashlight reveals the fluttering cloud above dark lily fields. Millions of moths. The crinum lilies invite them. Daytime those moths hunker down in the straw mulch. But something more than shifting light calls them up from below. If you had a slow-motion camera and a fragrance detector, you could see…
Read MoreOpen Source vs. Proprietary Plants — Can People “Own” Plants?
Yes, they can, they do and they want to own even more. You can, but it’s complex and expensive. So mostly the people who own plants are huge agricultural companies. They control the plant– you’ve heard about this with genetic modification no doubt, but it sure happens in the flower world, too. It used to…
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