Unearthed Words
Mary Rose O’Reilley, The Barn at the End of the World: The Apprenticeship of a Quaker, Buddhist Shepherd
Today’s Garden Words were featured on The Daily Gardener podcast: Click here to see the complete show notes for this episode. Words inspired by the garden are the sweetest, most beautiful words of all. Mary Rose O’Reilley (colorized and enhanced). November 1, 2025 November’s arrival marks a slow transition, a quiet folding of the year’s…
Read MoreSaving the Sakura: Cherry Ingram’s Journey to Preserve Japan’s Blossoms
by Naoko Abe There, in a garden of a house near the Osakabe Hotel (“sah-KAH-bay”), towering above a tall wooden fence, stood a tree with narrow leaves and bunched clusters of double mauve-pink blossoms with close to 100 petals. Ingram’s immediate reaction was to work out how to spirit cuttings of the tree to England.…
Read MoreUnderstanding Soil’s Story: Lessons from Carol Williams on Garden Life
by Carol Williams When one is first beginning to garden or gardening in a place one does not yet know, soil can seem dumb and unhelpful, just dirt. It is gray and empty, or yellow, clammy, and stony, or perhaps it is black and full of worms. Little pebbles might be interspersed all through it,…
Read MoreBark pH and Its Influence on Lichens and Vegetation: Insights from Tristan Gooley
by Tristan Gooley Each tree’s bark will have its own pH, and some are more acidic than others. Larches and Pines are notoriously acidic; Birch, Hawthorne and Oak are acidic too, but slightly less so. Rowan, Alder, Beech, Linden, and Ash are little less acidic again, and Willow, Holly and Elm are getting closer to…
Read MoreGarden Attire
by Nancy Goodwin I am a small person with short, gray hair, usually dressed in winter in faded jeans, frayed at the knees and cuffs, boots, and layers of old shirts, and in summer in faded shorts and shirts. A wide-brimmed straw hat without a crown protects my face from the sun. I generally pull…
Read MoreSurviving the Desert: The 1874 Expedition of Botanist WEP Giles in Central Australia
by Anita Silvey In 1874, the English botanist WEP Giles (William Ernest Powell) explored the vast deserts of central Australia. Setting out with his hunting partner from a base camp at Fort McKellar, he discovered a leak in one of his large water bags. The two men decided to continue, even though the temperature had…
Read MoreWinter Larder Wisdom: Traditional Storage and Preservation by Georgeanne Brennan
by Georgeanne Brennan Harvested fruits and vegetables can be stored over winter in a number of ways. Perishable summer stone fruits can be dried, packed into sweetened alcohol syrups, or cooked into preserves or jellies. The pom fruits — apples, pears, and quinces — from late summer and early fall harvest will keep for several…
Read MoreMilk Sickness and Loss: The Tragic Death of Nancy Hanks Lincoln by Amy Stewart
One of the most famous victims of milk sickness was Nancy Hanks Lincoln, mother of Abraham Lincoln. She fought the disease for a week but finally succumbed, as did her aunt and uncle and several other people in the small town of Little Pigeon Creek, Indiana. She died in 1818 at the age of thirty-four,…
Read MoreConnecting with Nature on a Minifarm
by Richard Louv The yard surrounding Karen Harwell’s home is only six hundred square feet, yet it harbors ducks, a beehive, eighteen semi-dwarf fruit trees, an organic vegetable garden, calming places to sit and read and think, and neighborhood teenagers. The teens visit summer, the dog, and sit in the rabbit hutch, hold the baby…
Read MoreStarting a Garden: The Playful Spirit and Pragmatic Wisdom of Cheryl Merser
by Cheryl Merser As with most occupations, there are different ways to approach the garden. The absolutely right way to start a garden, for instance, is to bulldoze your whole yard, then, according to a friend of mine, a brilliant (if obsessive gardener), spend some time in it naked in the middle of the night,…
Read MorePruning the Willows: Wisdom and Lore from Beth Chatto’s Garden
by Beth Chatto ‘How often do you prune your willows?’ you may ask. It varies. We have to consider the vigor of different varieties and also, of course, the amount of time we have to spare. We do not always do what is ideal. If you can manage it, I think it is probably best…
Read MoreThe Secret Language of Daisies: Susan Wittig Albert on Healing, Prophecies, and Seasonal Signs
by Susan Wittig Albert The Daisy’s genus name, Belis (martial or warlike), refers to its use by Roman doctors as a common treatment for battlefield wounds. John Gerard, the sixteenth-century herbalist and author of the first important herbal in English, wrote: “The leaves stamped take away bruises and swellings … whereupon it was called in…
Read MoreThe First Flower of Winter: Jack Sanders on Skunk Cabbage’s Early Arrival
by Jack Sanders In much of North America, skunk cabbage has earned the widespread reputation as the first flower of spring. It might be more accurate, however, to call it the first flower of winter. “The skunk cabbage may be found with its round green spear-point an inch or two above the mold in December,”…
Read MoreFebruary Gold: Katharine S. White’s Delight in Early Blooming Bulbs
by Katharine S. White I shall never desert the bulbs, though, and last winter, I think I got more pleasure from a pot of February Gold daffodils than from anything else I raised unless it was my pots of freesias. February Gold, which is a medium-small, all-yellow narcissus of the cyclamen type, for me proved…
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