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…
Late April is when spring bulbs start to lose the argument with taste. A daffodil that looked almost heroic two weeks ago now has a collapsed flower head, a papery stem, and a thick fountain of leaves leaning over the path. Tulips drop their petals and leave behind cups of green foliage that seem to take up more space than…
By mid-September, bare soil usually reads as an ending. Summer annuals are thinning. The cucumber vines are tired. Fallen leaves begin collecting in the small pockets where paths meet planting beds. Then, from a place that looked empty yesterday, a lilac flower rises without warning. No leaves come with it. No green fan announces the plant. The flower simply appears…
An April magnolia can look almost unreasonable. The grass is still thin, the perennials are barely showing, and the rest of the tree has not bothered with leaves. Then the branches open bowls of pink, cream, purple, or white into the cold air, as if the garden has skipped several pages and landed directly in bloom. That early display is…
In January, a flowering shrub can feel almost unreasonable. The garden is mostly structure: bark, seed heads, mulch, stone, the green insistence of evergreens. Then witch hazel opens on bare wood. Its flowers do not arrive as soft spring cups or summer trumpets. They arrive as thin ribbons, yellow or copper or red, curling and uncurling in the cold like…
On the last day of the year, a garden can look as if it has been reduced to essentials. Soil, bark, seed heads, paths, the quiet architecture of shrubs. Then a stand of red-twig dogwood catches the low light and refuses to behave like background. The stems are leafless, but they are not dull. They burn red against snow, frost,…
In December, a garden becomes very honest. The flowers have stopped covering weak structure. Herbaceous stems have collapsed or turned to seed. Deciduous trees have taken their color down to bark, bud, and branch. Then the evergreens begin to look almost improbable: pine, spruce, yew, holly, boxwood, rhododendron, juniper. They stand in the cold with leaves still attached, as if…
By November, most deciduous trees have become honest silhouettes. The maple has emptied itself. The serviceberry is bare. The birch has given its leaves to the path. Then, at the woodland edge or in a young hedge, a beech or oak still stands with dry copper leaves clinging to every twig, rattling softly whenever the wind moves through. It can…
A black walnut makes itself known in October. The leaves yellow and fall in long, feathery pieces. The nuts drop with a weight you can feel through the soles of your shoes. Their green husks darken, bruise, and stain almost anything that touches them. Under the tree, the ground becomes a small map of influence: shade, roots, shells, leaflets, squirrels,…
By late September, the garden begins to keep two calendars at once. Tomatoes may still be ripening. Dahlias may still be loud. But above them, a serviceberry starts to ember at the edges, a dogwood darkens toward wine, and a maple holds green, yellow, and red on the same branch as if it has not yet decided what season it…
