Pruning an Overgrown Mind
When you reach a certain age, you’re no longer the protagonist of your own actions: all you have left are the consequences of things you’ve already done. The seeds you’ve sown have been growing...
Garden Authorities
It’s raining. Again. In short, the weather is better-suited to reading and writing about gardens than to actually weeding or planting or musing, and it is making me think about the general run of...
Purple Toadflax
Purple Toadflax I have an image of a fastidious gardener weeding out everything without “papers,” that is, everything that didn’t either come with a name and pedigree or that self-seeds in everyday English (such...
New Perennialist Planting
It’s called a movement sometimes, this apparently loose-defined international way of thinking about plants. It’s “planting,” rather than “gardening.” It emphasises simple, minimal maintenance needs, variety, and an unstructured appearance a point in our...
Imperial Gardening
There are moments when it seems like gardening is English. I seem to recall sensing this even as a child, growing up in the American Midwest, that there were “English” gardens — either long-ago or far-way,...
Leave it alone!
I seem to be burdened with some idea that a “garden” implies detailed knowledge, fastidious maintenance and a sturdy aesthetic, that is, a reliable sense of what you — the gardener — like. I...
