My husband came in one afternoon, looked at Fern, and asked, “How long are you going to keep that plant?” You’re probably wondering why a poinsettia was named Fern. I  …

Each year at the end of December, when my self-esteem is low (having been eroded by parties full of people who are younger, thinner, richer, and more charming and more  …

Years and years ago, my sister and I attended an all-day gardening workshop. Newly married city girls who now lived in houses with big backyards, we jumped right in. My  …

When my husband landed his dream job, we gleefully packed our bags and headed north to Maine, where we’d always wanted to live. We hadn’t looked very long before we  …

In the Springtime, gardeners everywhere rhapsodize about that glorious season of rebirth when the earth comes alive, bursting with new vitality. This is all wonderful, but there has to be  …

Much though I love the book, as a scientist I’ve always been suspicious of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden. For those gardeners who haven’t read it, this is the  …

Nobody in the county was better at coaxing food out of the ground than Daddy. He had the thumb, they said. Daddy had a lot of sayings. The old ones,  …

If you look in my parents’ photo albums, you’ll see pictures of a little redheaded girl toddling around Kingwood Center and burying her nose in every flower she sees. Kingwood  …

Late last Spring there were suddenly potted flowers in bloom for sale everywhere, offering an instant Summer garden. They were very tempting. But I began wondering how they fit in:  …

Back in the day, my best friend Marge and I became known as The Gardening Fools. This was due to that incident with the gigantic tomato worm we dispatched via  …