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 …
After Eden 