We are reinventing our company. Since 2006 we have been transforming from a small but extremely diverse regional mail order nursery into a larger and more broadly assorted national research and production company with several nurseries, test gardens and a greater online presence. One of our perduring services is a close personal contact with customers. […]
They don’t make Labor Day like they used to. The shifting forms and meanings of labor have rendered Labor Day our most nebulous national holiday. For example, in gardening—a leisure activity—Labor Day is incorrectly considered the close of the season. For holiday-goers, it marks the end of summer—despite schools regularly starting weeks before the first […]
The proverbial naïve optimist brought low by reality, Candide might be the first modern hero. Certainly, he was the first modern gardener. In the image popularized by the 18th century French novelist Voltaire—”tending your own garden”—Candide is a metaphor for pursuing, and enduring, one’s own path, perhaps even “minding your own business”, in the best […]
Simon Crawford collects extremely rare plants, both wild and tame, around the world. From the high mountains of Nepal to the obscure markets of Europe to the botanical gardens of faraway South America, he tracks down new and interesting meadow plants as well as historic old cultivars from discarded breeding programs of companies that have […]
On the upcoming 4th of July we celebrate our country’s independence. The annual commemoration comes loaded with spirited symbolism: fireworks, the Stars and Stripes, the rousing National Anthem, marching bands, bandstands draped with tri-colored bunting, citizens attired in colonial dress. The country’s majestic National Bird, the Bald Eagle, perches on signs and banners. This is […]
Spectacular Japanese Fountain Grass (Hakonechloa macra ‘Aureola’), indeed, but it would be so much less without the Bent Grass (Agrostis stolonifera), an Asian native beloved in the Pacific Northwest and considered a weed in the Atlantic Northeast. Photograph taken at Heronswood’s original test and display gardens in Kingston. Get rid of your lawn? Plant […]
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 […]
INDIAN SUMMER For pleasure during the cooling nights of late summer and fall, we offer a harmonious blend of cultivars for potager and flower beds. The following shrubs, annuals, vegetables, herbs and perennials combine beautifully with some particularly fine fruit. Vegetables: Swiss Chard ‘Bright Lights’ Beet ‘Bull’s Blood’ Broccoli ‘Flash’ Broccoli Raab […]
Solomon was a great king, but not a gardener. It turns out that, after all, there is an infinitude of new things under the sun. This is the essence of innovation and evolution, and the antithesis of tradition and the status quo. Thus, Darwin was, perhaps, the truest of all prophets. While I’ll never stand […]
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 […]
