As we grow older, New Year’s Resolutions are apt to become more important to us. The accumulating years begin to press down upon us, bringing acute awareness of our mortality.  READ MORE

Several years ago, I planted eight azaleas to make a hedge alongside the house. There’s an old garden saying: “Give a one-dollar tree a ten-dollar hole.” In other words, it’s worth making an extra effort to get a plant off to a good start.  READ MORE

When I was only a remote and distracted onlooker of the accomplished work of gardens, I considered gardeners to be beings of a peculiarly poetic and gentle mind, who cultivate perfumes of flowers listening to the birds singing.   READ MORE

A million daisies have invaded my mother’s garden. They grow rampant among the phlox and delphinium, the lilies and the roses. She doesn’t want their scraggly disorder in her picture-perfect beds, but she cannot stand to kill anything, especially a flower.  READ MORE

Most noble endeavors of mankind have a patron saint, usually a man or woman who has achieved notoriety—often by torture or death—in a particular field or endeavor.  READ MORE

It’s hard for me to say exactly when gardening stopped being just a healthy pastime and became an all-consuming passion. One day I’m fertilizing a few tomato plants, and the next thing I know, an eighteen-wheeler is unloading 50 yards of compost for a 3,000- square-foot cutting garden.  READ MORE

After six months of living in roach motels, selling my blood for money, camping out with bedsheets and blankets, and even pondering the idea of getting a job in a whorehouse, I decided that enough was enough. In the Spring of 1970, I came back to New York.  READ MORE

Some people are born gardeners, and some are not. When representatives from these two groups meet, they slam together like magnets, for some reason. There’s instant rapport: “What kind of mulch do you like?” “Oh, gravel, I suppose. Noisy party, isn’t it? Let’s go somewhere. . . . “ Sometimes they marry.  READ MORE

They had just celebrated their 39th anniversary in April when Bill went for his annual checkup. Always in perfect health, he was unprepared for what the doctor found. Symptoms Bill had ignored as “old age” led to questions, palpations, more questions, and finally instructions for a battery of tests.  READ MORE

Master Gardeners do a lot of community service, including answering questions from home gardeners, often on community garden hotlines. Erv Evans, from the North Carolina state Master Gardener program, has over the years collected some truly, uh, unusual queries. How would you handle the following?  READ MORE

If you think Robin Hood wore green tights because of color preference or to make a Sherwood Forest fashion statement, think again. Robin wore green in homage to the Green Man.  READ MORE

“Weeding never ends, honey. It’s the gift that keeps on giving, one of the few things you can count on in this life.” Aunt Sadie’s words were a little hard to make out: She was on her knees with her rear end facing me, her face wedged between buddleias draped with blooms. Aunt Sadie was a whiz in the garden.  READ MORE

Last week, while driving home from the library at four o’clock in the afternoon, I blocked the driveway of our local Dunkin’ Donuts restaurant. I didn’t mean to block the Dunkin’ Donuts restaurant.  READ MORE

The other day, while weeding, I unearthed a rusty trowel, which got me started thinking about tools in general. They seem to come in two varieties, those I swear by and those I swear at. Among those I swear at are cheap trowels. They’re usually stamped out of sheet metal, and they bend easily. They not only fail to do the job, they frustrate the heck out of me until I manage to break them.  READ MORE

I tell anyone who asks that my love of gardening came directly from my father. What I don’t reveal is that he taught me about a greater kind of love, as well. Father’s flower garden was beautiful—and perfect. Everything was neat and in its place—even the white picket fence.  READ MORE

My uncle was with the 8th Air Force in World War II. When he got out, he got into growing gladiolas. My dad was a Marine in Korea. When he became a civilian, fruit trees were his thing. I was a Marine in Vietnam from 1968 to 1969. When I came home, it took me years to realize what plants can do for you.  READ MORE