Here’s a fun game of horticultural “Truth or Dare”. Growing sunflowers for snacking seed seems “out there” to me at least. There would have to be an extremely delicious type that I’ve not heard of or grown yet. The “freshness” of a nut’s taste is sometimes a result of its ripening after a few weeks […]
The sculptor Densaburo Oku, or “Dense” or “Mr. Oku”, in his workshop. He had already a distinguished career in Japan before coming to the US twenty years ago. He casts, molds and blows glass and works metal. We have ten fish by Densaburo Oku. The metal combines found and reworked parts, and the glass is […]
Photos by Mary Kliwinski View of Dahlia Research Trials Research Director Grace Romero 2001 Heronswood Garden at Fordhook, renamed Carolina Garden for my mother. Memorial for my mother, Caroline Vivian Ball. Partial view of new Heronswood Gardens Upper Pond Lower Pond – the total planted area at Fordhook Farm in 2009 will be about 12 […]
Photo by Dean Fosdick This is the study where our founder, W. Atlee Burpee, wrote the Burpee annual seed and plant catalogues from 1889, when he bought Fordhook Farm and moved his family up from Philadelphia, until his passing away in 1915. From 1875 to 1888, he wrote them in his small office in the […]
With about 10 million customers, Burpee draws data from a wide cross-section of avid gardeners: high, medium and low income; urban, suburban and rural; old and young; male and female. The US conforms to the UK and Europe in nearly all categories. Most gardeners are about 40 or older; just over half are women; home […]
By Lois Burpee Eight years of boarding school and college menus, and four years of stretching the dollar-a-day budget, while sharing an apartment with a sister or friend in the depression years, were a culinary vacuum, with one exception. While at Wellesley College, I was introduced to Chinese food. A group of students who had […]
In the middle of writing a non-fiction book on the history of the world’s religions, I despair about finishing before it’s too late. Writing a book requires much more careful thought than I imagined. As much heat as light: preparation, outline, sources, sentence and paragraph structure, etc. It’s true that a plan is crucial. Also, […]
By Lois Burpee “How did you, the wife of David Burpee, become interested in vegetables?” is a question frequently asked me—as though I had become a traitor to my husband and his passion for flowers. I am expected to be a flower expert, especially of marigolds, not vegetables. “I just did” is hardly a satisfactory […]
We held the July 12 Open House at Heronswood’s new gardens in Doylestown, PA, welcoming over 430 people from across the northeast and mid-Atlantic states. We conducted seven garden tours, sold over a thousand rare plants and gave away a young hydrangea to the first 250 guests. It was a great day, though very hot. […]
I’m extremely fortunate to live at Fordhook Farm, the Burpee family redoubt, where we carry on all of our basic ornamental and vegetable research, and put on our summer open houses, the next one being Saturday, July 12th. A 19th century success story, the Burpees were a diverse clan including illustrious fathers, moms, daughters and […]
