Close looks at garden and houseplants: their identifying features, growth habits, uses, limitations, and site-specific care.
On a cold February morning, a maple with a bucket on it can sound more awake than the rest of the garden. The beds are still flat. The lawn is patched with old snow. The buds on the branches look tight and undecided. Then, from a small metal spout in the bark, a clear drop gathers, falls, and ticks against…
On a January morning, a rhododendron can look as if it has lost its nerve. Yesterday the leaves were broad, glossy, and almost tropical in their confidence. Today they hang like narrow green cigars, each one drooping from the twig and curled along its length as if the whole shrub has tightened itself against the cold. It is an alarming…
On a January windowsill, a fern can look like the most innocent plant in the house. Green fronds, soft shadows, a pot that asks mostly for humidity and restraint. Then you turn one frond over and find rows of brown dots underneath. They can look alarming if you were not expecting them. The dots may be round, rusty, tan, black,…
Read more about The brown dots under fern leaves are not pests
On a cold January morning, a fruit tree can look almost empty. The leaves are gone, the grass is flattened, and the branch tips seem to be holding nothing more interesting than brown dots. It is easy to walk past an apple, peach, plum, cherry, pear, or blueberry and think the garden has become a diagram of waiting. But those…
Read more about Why fruit trees count winter before they bloom
By the last morning of the year, a deciduous tree has usually stopped pretending. The leaves are gone. The soft green noise of summer has fallen away. Every fork, scar, old pruning cut, and awkward branch angle is suddenly visible against the winter sky. That is when the green clump looks most suspicious. High in an apple, poplar, maple, hawthorn,…
Most winter garden work happens above ground: cutting back blackened stems, emptying pots, gathering leaves, pretending the hose should have been put away last week. But one of the strangest small gardens you can keep is almost entirely hidden from that view. It sits in a tub, a half barrel, or a small pond, and its leaves do their work…
By early October, a milkweed pod can look as if it is holding its breath. The green has faded toward gray. The skin has toughened. A seam that was almost invisible in August begins to lift, and inside the pod is a compressed little weather system: brown seeds packed like shingles, each one tied to a white silk sail. The…
In early October, a juniper can make a liar out of ordinary words. The shrub looks evergreen in the most literal way: prickly, resinous, and built for weather. Then you notice the blue beads tucked along the twigs, as round and matte as tiny blueberries. They look like fruit. They are usually called berries. They even turn up in kitchens…
By October, the visible garden starts behaving as if the year is almost filed away. Leaves thin out. Annuals lose their nerve. The tomato vines look tired, the border gets looser at the edges, and the first serious leaf rake begins to sound reasonable. But the garden has a poor sense of human endings. Above ground, many plants are slowing…
A spotless October garden has excellent public relations. The stems are gone. The leaves are bagged. The beds are shaved down to mulch and labels. From the sidewalk, it looks responsible, almost moral, as if the gardener has defeated decay itself and sent it away in kraft paper sacks. Here is the irritating truth: a garden that clean is often…
Read more about Your spotless fall garden is not the virtue you think it is
