Category Archives: Garden
Philadelphia Flower Show’s world tour
It’s time for the overwhelming visual cacophony that is the Philadelphia Flower Show, with displays that suspend disbelief in a combination Cirque du Soleil-Mummers Parade riot of color an......
Favorite February plants
In a snow-covered landscape, plants that spice up that expanse of white make the winter more interesting. Evergreen boughs iced with a frosting of snow, multicolored peeling bark, deciduous bra......
Favorite January plant – orchids
After all the glitter and baubles from the holidays are put away, we embrace the simplicity of winter. Yet we still seem to hunger for a bit of color to remind us that spring will come again. Th......
Lo, how an Iris e’er blooming
“It came, a floweret bright, amid the cold of winter.”
Walking through the Tanger Arboretum next to Wheatland Mansion, I was surprised to see a bed of blooming iris on St. Nicholas ......
Favorite November plant
Sure plenty of trees have great fall color, but how many smell like cotton candy? As the county’s autumn fairs finish, it’s a way to recapture that festival scent a little later into the season.......
Favorite October plant
It’s a reason to hold out hope for a late freeze. Just when they’ve come into their own in prolific showy displays, upward facing daturas and pendulous brugmansias make a heroic last stand in th......
Favorite September plant
Sure it won’t be the showiest plant in your landscape, and if you’re lucky, many of the leaves will have holes in them by the end of the month, but planting some perennial milkweed (Asclepias) i......
Daylily delights
Spent the afternoon in daylily heaven. Connoisseur Jim Stauffer played the perfect host, showing off his 130 varieties planted in the front yard of his Kissel Hill home. Subject to extreme condi......
Hydrangea – Favorite July plant
On hot summer days, the cool blue of a mop-head hydrangea creates a lush visual respite in the garden. Acid soil turns flowers to blues and purples. A more alkaline composition found in our swe......
Tomato update
Lots of growth already on my in-law’s topsy-turvy tomato plant. Good thing my father-in-law anticipated the future weight and built a solid support. (My neighbor’s much smaller one i......