Winter is coming fast, and it’s time to abandon the garden for a warm fire and a pile of cozy mysteries. I’d feel that way even if the deer had not broken in and eaten everything this year. I tell myself they were just saving me on cutting back the plants for winter. So in […]
Beverley Nichols: A Dark and Stormy Garden Writer
Of the three iconic literary monsters of the nineteenth century, two of them were created by women writers. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is so well known that she is often (rightly) credited with being the mother of science fiction. Jane Webb’s The Mummy is treated more as a curiosity; indeed she is better known as a
Elizabeth von Arnim was not a garden writer, but she was a writer whose garden made her famous — as well as being the source of her name. She is now most famous for her novel The Enchanted April, which was made into a 1991 movie featuring Joan Plowright, Polly Walker, Miranda Richardson, and Josie
This has been a fantastic year for peonies — a flower as fantastic as the stories of its origin. The flower is named for Paeon, the physician to the gods in Greek mythology, who angered his teacher Asclepius when he used an extract from the root of the peony to cure Pluto. When a jealous
Peonies: A Fantastic Year for a Fantastic Flower
This is the first year that every single Cypripedium in our garden has bloomed — and sequentially, no less, so we’ve had lady’s slippers all May. No, these were not in our garden, but well worth the mile-long hike in 94 degree heat up the trail across the road from our house. First identified in
What’s in a Name? Lady’s Slippers at Byrdcliffe
“A curious belief [in Cheshire] about cowslips was that if they were planted upside down, they would come up red.” Christina Hole, Traditions and Customs of Cheshire Christina Hole is not really a gardener, but rather a folklorist interested in domestic folklore, including gardening. Editor of the distinguished journal Folklore, she was described as “rather
William Wordsworth might be the English writer most immediately associated with daffodils, but his sister Dorothy is the one who captured the spirit of this year’s daffodils, striving to hold their heads up against wind, rain, and yesterday evening, sleet: I never saw daffodils so beautiful they grew among the mossy stones about & about
The weather’s nice enough to start clearing out our beds. IButt’s been a long, chilly, frustrating spring. But there’s nothing like a crocus to remind you that you still don’t miss the city. Then again, you should not forget Florence White’s sage warning in Flowers as Food: Receipts and Lore from Many Sources. (My copy
I’m not sure I’d go quite that far, but another ice storm might push me over the edge. Maria Theresa Earle (8 June 1836 – 27 February 1925)was born as Maria Theresa Villiers and wrote as as Mrs C. W. Earle. She published three Pot-Pourri gardening guides starting in 1897 with Pot-Pourri from a Surrey
Winter Weather Advisory March 25