A storm is brewing this evening, a severe thunderstorm warning. So what! How many days in a row is this? Never have I seen the garden so lush in mid-June. Though most days are cloudy, temperatures have been moderate and rainfall plentiful. The six ponds in the garden are full to the brim, and surrounded…

This week I’m headed to Oregon. A surprising number of plants sold in garden centers in the mid-Atlantic and northeast are grown there. Mild temperatures and low humidity promote a long growing season without the stressful heat and humidity of the east coast. Even when temperatures reach triple digits on rare occasions in the Summer, nighttime…

Can’t you smell that smell? Who stashed a dead body under the deck? I confess, it was me. Not a body, the ghastly stench is from Amorphophallus konjac, cousin to the Amorphophallus titanium that is said to be the world’s largest flower, and certainly the smelliest. The lovely scent is reminiscent of rotting flesh, thus the call…

A deficit has become a surplus. The month began with rainfall totals a bit below average, but that is a distant, soggy memory. The garden is a lush jungle of foliage and flowers, the monstrous hostas  arching over the paths, rain soaked branches of stewartia heavy with flower buds tumble over the granite bench by…

I’ve neglected the ponds long enough. For weeks it’s been nothing but flowers and more flowers. Finally, Saturday was sunny and warm, so the raft was brought out of storage (actually it spent the Winter tucked under  the Silver Cloud redbud) and launched into the swimming pond for a couple hours of peaceful floating. The…

I hate trends, jargon, psycho babble, and landscape architect-speak (curvilinear, spatial planes, and such). “Studies” bother me. My wife recently prepared a talk for a public speaking course about studies that show health and intellectual benefits from being in the garden. I can’t imagine how you can put a number on this, but they did, and the…

My back is killing me! The wife and I drove down to Georgia to visit our son over the weekend, my first weekend away from garden chores since early March. The major tasks in the garden are long ago accomplished, but there’s always a weed to pull or an errant branch of this or that…

After nine or ten days of rain, and scarcely a glimpse of the sun during that time, sunny days have returned. Though the temperatures are cool, with nighttime lows in the forties, blooming plants have picked up the pace. There are flowers popping out all over the garden, and buds that will open in days…

Saturday and Sunday this week were moving days, hauling the big tubs of tropical bananas, elephant ears, agaves, and other assorted this and that’s out of their crowded Winter home. At long last I can move around the house without fear of being speared by an agave tip. Most of the tropicals were set on the…

There’s so much to do, and so little time. The easy part is planting and building, though not so easy at the time. Inspiration is likely the culprit, for motivation is easier in the doing than in maintaining. Now is the time to pick up and clean up, and I fear every year that I’ve…

Back by popular demand today, more pictures less chatter. All the iris in these photos are Japanese iris, Iris ensata. All are growing in shallow water in the ponds in my garden, although they will grow nicely in the ground also. Japanese iris are said to be somewhat difficult to grow, but in my ponds…