Over dinner recently with Heronswood’s brilliant new plant collector, Simon Crawford, I learned that what we regard as soil resulted from plant life, not the other way around. While not quite as simple as that, it’s true that plants created land, as in “land, ho!” or “this is good earth—our crops will grow here”, etc. […]
New Plant Frontiers Parts 2 & 3 Here are the middle sections of my speech for today, April 3 and tomorrow, April 4 at 1:30 P.M. Also, we have the hellebore expert and new plant explorer Simon Crawford speaking at 11:00 A.M. both days on the timely subject of the Lenten Rose. Even if it’s […]
Here’s a preview of the first half of my speech to be given this Friday and Saturday, April 3 and 4, at 1:30 P.M. Come hear the rest of it! Part 1, New American Sun Garden I’m going to talk today about the future of plant breeding from the unique perspective of someone who has […]
The Philadelphia Flower show celebrates 180 years and its parent Pennsylvania Horticultural Society its 182nd year. Happy Birthday! Over a thousand bloom-hungry patrons in gowns and black tie flocked to Preview Night last Saturday, enjoying the sights, sounds and tastes of Italy, the show’s 2009 theme, an eye, ear, nose and throat exam for stir-crazy […]
Three years ago this spring I wrote an op/ed piece for the New York Times (my third) about the then raging “natives versus exotics” controversy. They called it “Border Wars” and it contained a typo (8,000 versus 12,000 years ago for the recession of the last glaciers, due to my confusion over BC and AD). […]
My predecessor David Burpee opined toward the end of his life that he regretted only that he would not live to breed the plants of other planets with earth’s. Odd, but then he was a genius born in 1893 who was interviewing a newspaper reporter in the late 60s, still a hot time in the […]
As we slog into the New Year, I want to share one of my personal enthusiasms with readers. This pastime requires little or no expense, can be done with minimal or no equipment, and engaged in wherever you happen to be. It can be practiced in solitude or with others. No batteries or […]
The folks working at Heronswood Nursery include these excellent employees headquartered at Fordhook Farm in Doylestown, PA. On this 60-acre estate, we have planted over 10 acres of rare cultivars, including much of what we offer on-line and in the Heronswood Catalog. Also, these are the folks you will meet at our upcoming 2009 Open […]
Another holiday-time pint of view movie critique of “Quantum of Solace”, the latest James Bond turkey. The clumsy and ostentatious title refers to our hero’s hard-won emotional release, fought out in a special digital effects studio. This is James “Another time, another place” Bond? Yes, and he’s worse than George Lazenby. He is seriously disturbed. […]
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 […]
