As my wife and I strolled through the Botanical Garden I pointed out one thing and another to her, a plant’s name or some horticultural curiosity, and to my astonishment, she usually replied with skepticism. I often claim to have planted one of everything in my garden, and of course this isn’t nearly true, but I’ve…

I first visited the Georgia Botanical Garden when my son began grad school at the University of Georgia five or six years ago, and each time my wife and I have traveled to Athens we have stopped by. The tours of the garden were always for a shorter period than I preferred, but I can…

The Brazilian native Princess Flower (Tibouchina urvilleana, below) must be cut back and brought indoors to survive the winter in northwestern Virginia, but through the summer there is no more glorious bloomer. The flowers are the deepest, richest purple, and the foliage is velvety to the touch. Though my garden is overflowing with cold hardy flowering plants,…

Is it too hot to garden? It is most definitely not too hot for weeds to grow, and brown as the lawn is, the crabgrass and nutsedge are still growing, so there are chores to be done. Temperatures in the shade feel ten degrees cooler, but there are no weeds in the shaded parts of…

Late in the spring I noticed that the creeping plumbago (Ceratostigma plumbaginoides, below) was being overtaken by cypress sprurge (Euphorbia cyparissias), a threadleafed euphorbia that is generally identified as weedy, but serves quite nicely as a spreading ground cover in my garden. The plumbago is tolerant of sun or part shade, and of dry conditions,…

Oops, no more room! Well, maybe there’s a little. I’ve been adding plants to this garden for twenty-two years, and seven or eight years ago my wife informed me that we had reached maximum capacity. Of course, I knew she was mistaken, and each year a bit of the lawn disappears and more plants appear. A…

I’ve just returned from my annual trek through the southeast, visiting nurseries to see what’s growing for the autumn and spring. Over two weeks our group of weary travelers rested in a new hotel every night, and after nearly four thousand road miles (and too many others bouncing through nurseries) it’s wonderful to return home….

In coastal Alabama summer rain can fall in torrents, but most commonly it gushes for fifteen minutes or an hour, and not throughout the day. On this Sunday the rain began early and ended late, though periods of gentle rain in the afternoon allowed me to stroll through the lush plantings at the Mobile Botanic…

The rear garden slopes gently so that the soil along the rear property line remains soggy through much of the summer, and in a rainy spring the area will be saturated for days. Two river birches and a variegated pussy willow thrive, and immediately beyond the border are cattails, brambles, and native vegetation that tolerates…

A year ago the passion vine (Passiflora, below) didn’t emerge from the ground until early in August, so of course it didn’t grow nearly as tall as is usual, and there were fewer blooms. This year the vine popped up by the end of May, a late arrival for most plants but normal for passion…