Hyacinth Bottle with Supporting Wire

Hyacinth Bottle with Supporting Wire

by Mandy Kirby The January 1860 garden column of the famous fashion magazine the New Monthly Belle Assemblee recommended the Hyacinth Bottle and Flower Support as being ideal for growing [Hyacinths] indoors. The slender bottle with bulbous base was nothing new; hyacinths were often grown in water, not soil, in these small glass vases, which…

Read More

Gardens in Winter by Elizabeth Lawrence

Gardens in Winter by Elizabeth Lawrence

by Katharine S. White I have had to enjoy the winter garden vicariously, with the help of books. The best for this purpose I’ve found is Elizabeth Lawrence’s new one. Gardens in Winter (Harper), which has allowed me to share the delights of the author’s garden in Charlotte, North Carolina, as well as the gardens and woods…

Read More

Jack Frost

Jack Frost

by Helen Bayley Davis Someone painted pictures on my Windowpane last night — Willow trees with trailing boughs And flowers, frosty white, And lovely crystal butterflies; But when the morning sun Touched them with its golden beams, They vanished one by one.     As featured onThe Daily Gardener podcast: Words inspired by the garden…

Read More

Through Springtime Walks

Through Springtime Walks

by Ann Batten Cristall, English poet and schoolteacher Through springtime walks, with flowers perfumed, I chased a wild, capricious, fair Where hyacinths and jonquils bloomed, Chanting gay sonnets through the air; Hid amid a briary dell Or ‘neath a Hawthorn-tree, Her sweet enchantments led me on And still deluded me. While summer’s ‘splendent glory smiles…

Read More

My Thoughts Turn to the Work of Pruning

My Thoughts Turn to the Work of Pruning

by David Mas Masumoto (“Mahs Mahs-ooh-moe-toe”), Peach & Grape Farmer and Author, Epitaph for a Peach, Pruning My thoughts turn to the work of pruning. Ideally, the first blasts of winter have left their mark and strip the trees of leaves. But I’ve seen antsy farmers prune while lots of leaves still hang in the…

Read More

Most Weeds Don’t Make it Through Winter

Most Weeds Don’t Make it Through Winter

by Susan Tyler Hitchcock Most weeds don’t make it through winter. They need warm rain and steady sun. Frozen soil inhibits root growth;   snowfalls discourage sprouts. Even watercress, which usually positions itself in flowing water, gets hurt by a freeze. If you live in an area where the snow falls over several months,  …

Read More

The Gray Geese and the White Pilgrim Ganders

The Gray Geese and the White Pilgrim Ganders

by Rachel Peden Under the big Swamp Maple in the east lot, the gray geese and the white Pilgrim ganders gather silently. During winter nights, they sleep in the open face tool shed, and often in the night, they think of new expressions of scorn and at once utter them. (“We are the watchdogs, we…

Read More

The Garden is Completely Winterized

The Garden is Completely Winterized

by Jean Hersey The garden is completely winterized except for the roses, which need more hay, and the four small box yet to be covered with burlap. We have a sentimental feeling for these box. Once many years ago, on a holiday with the children, we were driving to North Carolina. We stopped at Mount…

Read More

December is a Blizzard in Wyoming

December is a Blizzard in Wyoming

by Hal Borland December is a blizzard in Wyoming and a gale on the lakes, and the Berkshires frosted like a plate of cupcakes. It is bare trees and evergreens. It is wrestling weed stems and a gleam of partridgeberry on the hillside, a cluster of checkerberries, and winter greens in the thin woodland. It…

Read More

Nature in Winter

Nature in Winter

by Donald Culross Peattie Nature in winter is like a great toy shop at night. The doors are locked, and only at the mysterious depths of the shop does some cold light burn. If we press our noses on the pane, we can just make out the forms of bigger objects. All the tenderer delights…

Read More

An Interview

An Interview

by John Bannister Tabb I sat with chill December Beside the evening fire. “And what do you remember,” I ventured to inquire, “Of seasons long forsaken?” He answered in amaze, “My age you have mistaken; I’ve lived but thirty days.”     As featured onThe Daily Gardener podcast: Words inspired by the garden are the…

Read More

Winter in the Garden

Winter in the Garden

by Edgar Albert Guest Gray skies above us, and the snow Blankets the frozen earth below. Where roses bloomed, the drifts lie deep. The hollyhocks are fast asleep. The cedars green are wearing white Like rich men’s wives on opera night. The elm tree strangely seems to throw A lean, gaunt shadow on the snow.…

Read More

The Ungrateful Garden

The Ungrateful Garden

by Carolyn Kizer Midas watched the golden crust That formed over his steaming sores, Hugged his agues, loved his lust, But (cursed) the out-of-doors Where blazing motes of sun impaled The serried roses, metal-bright. “Those famous flowers,” Midas wailed, “Have scorched my retina with light.” This gift, he’d thought, would gild his joys, Silt up…

Read More

Eleven Flowers Mentioned in Milton’s Lycidas

Eleven Flowers Mentioned in Milton’s Lycidas

by John Milton Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies, The tufted crow-toe, and pale gessamine, The white pink, and the pansy freaked with jet, The glowing violet, The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine, With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head, And every flower that sad embroidery wears: Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed,…

Read More