I didn’t go to Morocco to visit gardens, but I definitely wanted to visit gardens while in Morocco. In particular, I was looking forward to touring through the Dades Valley, famous for its pink Persian roses and the production of rose water. Unfortunately, the time was not right and there was little to see. But …
The need for this post came upon me as I was looking around the late winter garden at the lake. It was just a few weeks ago in early March. Everything was rather bare. Mottled green and maroon Trilliums were starting to open, pale gray-green Bellwort (Uvularia grandiflora) was beginning to bend softly over to …
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, …
After Eden 