I am a medievalist. I spent my academic career teaching medieval literature, especially the Middle English literature of the 14th century, and its appropriation for a vast array of artistic, social, and commercial causes by the 19th, 20th, and 21stcenturies. I like Oxford. Its spires, narrow streets, and granite and limestone walls feel familiar, warm, …
As I begin writing this, it is cold in Alabama—not cold for Alabama, cold in Alabama. It is midafternoon and only 26 degrees, with a wind that makes it feel like 16. It even snowed a snow that stayed around for more than a few hours a couple of weeks ago. Another winter storm threatens …
Being the holiday season, I thought that a post on garden books would be a timely plan. And I had three very different, but good, books chosen. Lorraine Harrison’s, How to Read Gardens: A Crash Course in Garden Appreciation, was the first. A quick read with beautiful photos, the compact volume is filled with basic, …
When I think of “academic” gardening (some might prefer to call it horticulture) in Alabama, I automatically think of Auburn University. After all, the Alabama Cooperative Extension System is housed there and at Alabama A&M, with most of the horticultural research being done at Auburn. Moreover, the Alabama Master Gardeners program is a program of …
I’ve been attending a number of presentations and workshops at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens lately. As I would expect is true for many of you, one of my favorite gardens there is the Japanese Garden. After a preview of the BBG’s fall plant sale one afternoon, I went to the garden, camera in hand, intent …
This is the story of a Forest Pansy redbud tree. Or, maybe it is a parable of a redbud tree. The Forest Pansy redbud, Cercis canadensis - 'Forest Pansy,’ also known as the Eastern Redbud is a magnificent tree. Zig-zagging, arching branches of silver grey, rich purple flowers that bloom early and right off the …
Although Holehird Gardens in Windermere, Cumbria, enjoys a healthy reputation in Britain (it holds four national collections: Astilbe, Polystichum, Daboecia, and Meconopsis), had Cindy Ravenhall not mentioned it to me in a casual conversation about her flourishing front yard garden, I would have left the Lake District with associations only of Beatrix Potter, Wordsworth, and …
In my initial post, I said that a garden could the size of a pot, a perennial boarder, or a park. This assertion was brought home to me on a recent trip to Windermere in the Lake District in England. We stayed at a lovely (that is the proper English word for it) award-winning B&B, …
We had our beginning, as created beings, in a garden. So say the world’s great monotheistic religions, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Whether one views the Genesis narrative of Eden as metaphor or as history, an essential point remains the same: we choose to believe that we were intended for a place of beauty, bounty, and …
