Our once shady front yard was left a bright expanse of coarse wood chips and mangled leaves after the arborists pulled out their heavy equipment and left, that hot summer afternoon almost a dozen years ago. A freak summer thunderstorm had harbored a waterspout or small tornado when it blew in from College Creek a few days before. Our first clue that something was wrong had been seeing the underside of a muddy root ball rising 8 feet or...
Appropriate Species for Tiny Forests in Eastern Virginia Tiny forests designed following the Miyawaki method include a wide variety of native trees, shrubs, and ground covers planted randomly and densely, varying the heights of trees to establish a canopy layer, intermediate layers, and a ground cover layer. Plant as many as 3 to 5 plants per square meter into the prepared soil. Plants grow quickly, reaching for the light. A forest that takes a century or more to develop...
“Why should a man die in whose garden grows sage? Against the power of death there is not medicine in our gardens But Sage calms the nerves, takes away hand Tremors, and helps cure fever. Sage, castoreum, lavender, primrose, Nasturtium, and athanasia cure paralytic parts of the body. O sage the savior, of nature the conciliator!” From the Regimen Sanitatis Salernitanum ca 1100-1200 CE The name Salvia officinalis, designating our common culinary sage, derives its species name from...
“And therefore, as a stranger give it welcome. There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in our philosophy.” William Shakespeare, from Hamlet, First Folio Perhaps you have already made a fairy garden. It is an endearing activity for parents and grandparents to enjoy with the children in their lives. Full of whimsy and fun, we enter the world of ‘make-believe’ once again and see the world from a different perspective. Everything is...
Have you ever planned a party, set up the bar and buffet, and then felt disappointed by how few people turned up to enjoy your hospitality? We are left wondering what went wrong. Curious gardeners planting flowers to support pollinators have sometimes been left feeling that way in recent years. We plant a tempting array of all the right plants and then sit watching and waiting for hummingbirds, butterflies, bees, and other winged pollinators to swoop in to enjoy...
Mythical Rosemary The woody, green fragrance of rosemary brings happiness. Rosemary has served as food, fragrance, medicine, as a religious tool, and as a favorite garden plant for millennia. It is considered a sacred and magical herb, associated both with Aphrodite and with Mother Mary. Rosemary has been planted in monastery, temple, medicinal and royal gardens over many centuries. Known now as Salvia rosmarinus, rather than the Rosmarinus officinalis we all learned, rosemary has one of the longest cultural...
“I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine: There sleeps Titania sometime of the night, Lull’d in these flowers with dances and delight; And there the snake throws her enamell’d skin, Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in:” William Shakespeare, from A Midsummer Night’s Dream Magical Thyme If you are wanting to conjure a bit of magic in your...
Peonies Symbolize Femininity, Wealth and Honor The peonies always bloom for Mothers’ Day in Eastern Virginia, alongside the roses. Roses and peonies are just part of the romance and beauty of mid-May in our area. Their full, heavy blossoms packed with petals invite the gardener to snip a stem or two for the vase inside, especially when there is rain in the forecast. Peonies invite us to pause and gather May’s flowers in the moment, savoring one of the most...
Planting Reliable Shrubs in Tough Conditions Home builders and contract landscapers rely on tried-and-true shrubs that they expect to out-live their warranty. That doesn’t mean that they are planting the most beautiful shrubs in new neighborhoods, or even the most appropriate ones for the site. They certainly don’t try to replace the sorts of native shrubs that might have grown on the site before it was razed for construction. But they choose reliable shrubs that they expect prospective buyers...
The Living Fence Gardening is the art of domesticating the wild, of creating living geometry within our landscapes. Order, symmetry, lines, and boundaries please the eye and soothe the spirit. We are inclined to organize and define our spaces by dividing them up into smaller pieces we can manage, to protect them within walls and behind gates. We contain what is ours, setting aside sacred space, our own ‘paradise,’ from the wider world. We exclude the unwanted wildness living...