“I was always attracted to mud.” – Emily Dickinson A garden is ephemeral. It is an artificial creation, an attempt to impose order on the...

In Irma Rombauer’s book, The Joy of Cooking (1931), between listings for spinach soup and green turtle soup, is a recipe for nettle soup.

“That we find…a poppy beautiful means that we are less alone, that we are more deeply inserted into existence than the course of a single...

“Slave to a springtime passion for the earth.”--Robert Frost, “Putting in the Seed” In the latest issue of Gardens Illustrated, there is...

“The cherry blossom represents the fragility and beauty of life. It’s a reminder that life is almost overwhelmingly beautiful but that it...

“A scent that is swoonier than any other smell in the garden.”--Anna Pavord In Judith Farr’s The Gardens of Emily Dickinson, Mabel Loomis...

“You say tomāto and I say tomăto” -- George and Ira Gershwin You say vegetable, and I say fruit. This argument pits botany against the...

“Baby, it’s cold outside.” — Frank Loesser Sitting with a good book under a wool blanket and maybe a cat or two, a fire burning in the...

“The summer is nearly over when the tall conspicuous Joe-Pye-Weeds begin to tinge with ‘crushed raspberry’ the lowlands through which we...

“Ireland, in breadth, and for wholesomeness and serenity of climate, far surpasses Britain; for the snow scarcely ever lies there above...

“The genus of the sages is vast and includes a high proportion of rubbish… However, that still leaves a great deal to preoccupy us.”...

“My temple is the swamp. I enter the swamp as a sacred place—a sanctum sanctorum.”—Henry David Thoreau For the past three months, I have...