Everything you plant dies? You think you have a brown thumb? I’m sorry, there’s no such thing. Anyone can grow plants, even you! In nearly four decades in the landscape business, and longer as a gardener, I’ve been amazed and confounded by the complexity that people attribute to the simple act of selecting and planting…

I think that I’m a happy person. Of course, I also think of myself as laid back, and people who hear that chuckle in disbelief, so perhaps I’m not qualified to judge. I consider myself a lazy gardener. I’m quite content to put important tasks off as long as possible, sometimes until the time to…

Good grief, ninety degrees! In early April. Two weeks of warm, but pleasant weather has passed, and now it’s just hot. Too hot! The spring bulbs are fading quickly in the heat, as are the flowering cherries, peach, and magnolias. Royal Star magnolia and Dr. Merrill are more accustomed to winter’s cold than summer, so they…

I’m in bad shape, broke down, beaten, and bewildered! One minute I’m feeling hopelessly behind in my garden, the next that I’m nearly caught up. Then I walk around any corner, and I have a lot of corners, and there’s lots more to do. There’s no fooling myself, I have a lot of chores ahead. After…

As part of promotions to celebrate its fifty year anniversary Meadows Farms has asked for entries to determine the “Ugliest Landscapes in the Washington D.C. area”. There are a lot of them, and no doubt there are many other “needy” gardens that haven’t been submitted. I have seen that many of the entries suffer from…

The Cherry Blossom Festival has begun on the Tidal Basin in Washington and the flowering Japanese cherries are nearing peak bloom, but fifty miles to the west Yoshino and Kwanzan cherries remain in tight bud, still a week or two from blooming. In my garden the early flowering Okame (below) is blooming, and Snow Fountain,…

The shrub stands tall above the snow with yellow blooms that herald spring’s arrival. No, not forsythia, but witch hazel ‘Arnold’s Promise’ (Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Arnold’s Promise’, below), with fragrant, ribbon-like flowers unfurling in late February’s frigid temperatures. I have a poor nose for such things, but walking through the garden on a late winter’s…

To the gardener winter is long, dull, and gray, a time for planning, ordering seeds, and dreaming of gardens bursting with blooms. The past winter was an exception, it wasn’t gray, but white, dreary, and seemingly endless. Thankfully it’s over, by the calendar and weather! The spring blooming bulbs have survived their extended period hidden…

No more than a mile from my home two star magnolias against a brick wall in full sun are in full bloom. In my garden Royal Star magnolia (Magnolia stellata ‘Royal Star’) remains in bud, though I can feel the tightness of the bud expanding, and if temperatures remain so warm as today’s seventy degrees…

There’s so much to do, and so little time. The winter’s heavy snow is a memory (even the parking lot mountains have melted), but left behind are broken and bent branches, uprooted evergreens, and snapped trunks as reminders. Now that temperatures have warmed the time is upon us to begin the clean up, in addition…