The Blogging Nurseryman – The only gutsy retailer I have found. Puts himself out there. As expected, he blogs depending on time available. Dig In With Kym – An award-winning garden writer, Ms. Pokorny comes from a nursery family and writes with great intelligence. One of the few to give us a fair shake, she […]
Like popular music, at its core a form of theater, blogs and websites are little “plays in a box”. For example, the internet’s threat to television is likely what terrifies the PRC’s totalitarian government. China could literally disintegrate into democratic regions—an outcome greatly wished. Apparently, Iran has a huge and increasing number of blogs and websites; their development is hastening the slippage of the religious death-grip
The precept that inspired the free press for several centuries was to make the comfortable less so, and to give hope to those lacking in comfort. It did this through commentary, ideas and opinions that swayed both “the readers and the leaders”. But what of the gardening press? Cultural tips, seasonal reminders, new cultivar descriptions […]
After closing our fiscal year at Burpee Seeds, I noticed some intriguing figures in the sales of flower and vegetable seeds to home gardeners that, while displaying great differences, also show affinities that would warm a compost heap. Politics, in my opinion, is not so much a contest between different states of red and blue as between different shades of green—a comforting reality in today’s frosty political climate.Lets’ first examine…
May Theilgaard Watts Reading The Landscape Of America — Botanical observation and nature writing combined in a stylish book with charming illustrations, perhaps the best of its kind. A legend in Chicago and long associated with the Morton Arboretum, May Watts was a Julia Child of botany. Sometime in the sixties when my mother took […]
While we recommend you wear old shoes and pack an umbrella when you visit our Hellebore Open on April 20 and 21, we promise you will be greatly rewarded with a full day of unprecedented early spring beauty.
Unbeatable value, too.
Imagine what a five dollar ($5.00) entry fee—refundable as credit for a plant purchase—gets you these days, and you cannot even dream up anyone to match our offer of a day…
My mom once asked me which sense I’d give up if I had to, sight or hearing? A teenager at the time, I wondered if it was a trick question. I thought about the blind people I’d seen tapping their canes along the sidewalks, and answered, “Hearing”. She told me she’d give up sight. I […]
Sometime in the mid 70s, I celebrated a party with friends at a then-landmark French restaurant in Chicago—the first of the “nouvelle”—called Le Perroquet. (There I tasted my first “mesclun” salad.) As we talked and dined I discerned, through the wine haze, that the place was utterly unique. Outside New Orleans, New York or San Francisco, no place like it existed, since fish was the focus. Thirty years ago, old…
Rex Murfitt Creating And Planting Alpine Gardens — Fantastic, workable introduction to alpines, with adjustments for the unique challenges facing US growing conditions. Murfitt also co-wrote the excellent Creating And Planting Garden Troughs. Roger Swain The Practical Gardener — Best overall gardening primer. Groundwork: A Gardener’s Ecology — Beautifully written. Earthly Pleasures — Collection, mostly, […]
