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The "Indoor Plant Décor" Virtual Book Tour
This is a special week for co-writer Jenny Peterson and me. Our new book - Indoor Plant Décor: The Design Stylebook for Houseplants - has been out and about for two weeks now and we've been busy with book signings and in Jenny's case, a TV appearance on Central Texas Gardener. Show More Summary
Doctor Who, Season 7, Part 2
In Slate’s Doctor Who TV Club, Mac Rogers discusses the Doctor’s travels via IM every week with the show’s bloggers and fans. This week he’s chatting about “The Crimson Horror” with Slate cultural critic June Thomas.
Tree Peony Suckers
Just a few weeks ago, I was rejoicing that the herbaceous peonies (Paeonia lactiflora) were emerging and I remarked on Facebook that they resembled hands reaching to the sky.
But when I saw this at the base of my tree peony, I wasn't happy at all:
Tree peonies (Paeonia suffruticosa) are generally grafted onto a P. Show More Summary
The Travels and Trials of Plant Explorer Panayoti Kelaides by Susan Harris
It’s only thanks to Tony Avent’s latest catalog cover that I knew that of the existence of Panayoti Kelaidis – he appears there just to the right of the Ranters. I didn’t know him as a famous plant collector/explorer who’s put the Denver Botanic Gardens on the map, but was just curious enough not to [...]
Springtime visit to the Garden of Good and Evil
Last weekend Lori, a gardener in southwest Austin who blogs at The Gardener of Good and Evil, hosted a meet-up of local garden bloggers. It was my second visit. I’d seen her lovely garden three years ago and posted about it then. Lori loves roses, and in 2010 they dominated her garden. Show More Summary
Spring Wonders
The garden always amazes me when one day you look out and nothing is blooming then the next day you open the drapes, look out into the garden and the garden has come alive. Blooms abound. I went through this short path and found that the tree peony was blooming. Show More Summary
Wordless Wednesday: 'Coors'
Greigii tulip 'Coors'
Gorgeous succulent bowl
Wow, check out this stunning succulent bowl! It was a gift from my friend Diana of Sharing Nature’s Garden, put together by Vivero Growers Nursery, and I LOVE it! The colorful aeonium (please let it live through our hot, humid summers!),...Show More Summary
Daily Rituals
If you want to do prolonged creative work, you're going to need to figure out a way to avoid the demands of society, at least some of the time. Most artistic endeavor requires stretches of solitude. That's why so many artists get upShow More Summary
Get a Job: Lau Hodges, Director of Operations, Conservatory of Flowers by Amy Stewart
Please welcome Lau Hodges, the latest victim of our all-too-infrequent series, Get a Job. What do you do for a living? I have the greatest job ever! I am the Director of Operations and Exhibitions at the San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers. I will be the first to admit that the operations [...]
How Long Can You Go Without Food?
On Tuesday President Obama renewed his effort to close Guantánamo Bay prison, where 100 inmates have been staging a hunger strike, some since February. (This week Slate is publishing the memoir of a prisoner who was tortured at Guantánamo...Show More Summary
Bedding Your Plants by Geoff Lewis
Guest Rant by Geoff Lewis Bon jour mes enfants, it’s Geoff Lewis speaking to the slightly curious sport of bedding plants. Bedding plants – you know, big pansies, dwarf marigolds and their ilk. One’s vision is of an orgiastic colour melee: Vast flocks of the vegetative equivalent of Pekinese and/or Schitzu-Poodle crosses (schit-poos) carpeting hallowed [...]
Honeybees spelunk in aloe flowers
The life of a garden is sometimes better revealed in close-up views. Take these honeybees, for example. They love the candelabra-like flowers of Aloe maculata, formerly A. saponaria. When the tubular blossoms open, bees converge to spelunk the depths. Show More Summary
Rose Rosette – Oil Spray to Control Mites
Q: I just read about rose rosette disease. Can we spray our Knockout roses with Volck oil spray in trying to keep the mites that spread this disease at bay? A: Rose rosette affects all roses. The most common symptoms are distinct short red stems at the end of canes and huge numbers of thorns [...]
Trees by the numbers by Elizabeth Licata
This sign was attached to a tree near my house. Did you hear or read the Arbor Day reports on the financial benefits of trees? On American Public Media’s Marketplace, they used i-tree to calculate the value of single trees as well as entire urban plantings. A ficus tree near the program’s office (in LA) [...]
