At the Battery, Piet Oudolf has written another glorious fall chapter to the story of the renaissance of urban gardens in New York City. Here at the Battery Bosque, the emphatic sweep of plants is at times even more dramatic than the High Line, in deeper soil with broader planting beds. With just these two [...]
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A white seedling of Verbascum phoeniceum is enthusiastically blooming away after the October surprise of early rains. It held on to its basal leaves in the sere gravel garden all summer in hope of some form of irrigation. Tough little mullein. I’m never very excited to find self-sown seedlings of this particular verbascum of [...] This mossed basket of various succulents failed to really gel over summer, no doubt from a bad habit of sticking in a hodge-podge of succulents that break off from plants in the garden and need a home to root in. So when I spotted these echeverias at a nursery last week, I reworked the basket [...] Crocus sativus, the saffron crocus I first became intrigued by the Highline when it was in its derelict state. I’d read a New York Times piece about an abandoned elevated railway in Manhattan, its purpose as a rail line to the meatpacking warehouses long forgotten by the citizens who walked oblivious beneath its [...] I swing between elation and despondency upon returning from an absence to be confronted by a garden that obviously carried on beautifully while I was away. Bravo, everyone is alive and thriving vs. sniffle, I am clearly superfluous. As usual, I overstate the case just a bit. I was away for only a [...] It was recently calculated (but not by me) that my little back garden is all of 882 square feet. After 20 years of gardening here, methodically covering every inch of that 882 square feet, with moisture and light now robbed by mature trees and shrubs, this past year I became intensely interested in vines. It [...] (Followup to Nerinomania.) I certainly don’t have a garden large enough to include a 6×6 fall-bloomer like Salvia mexicana ‘Limelight.’ And I don’t think there’s an affordable pot in existence roomy enough for a mature plant, except maybe the humble trash can. (On my budget anyway.) The salvia flowers well in morning sun, filtered sun the rest [...] I went on a treasure hunt for a half-forgotten bulb in the front gravel garden in early fall, Crinum ‘Sangria.’ I was certain it was in there somewhere. That’s when I noticed the new green tips of the nerines piercing through a sea of gravel. Spring is full of such miracles. When they [...] You didn’t really expect we’d be discussing the latest Manolo Blahniks, did you? Below is the transcribed conversation of a group of cyber garden pals on the topic of various approaches to overwintering tropicals. All but me garden in a zone colder than 7. Deanne: So who stores all their Colocasias/alocasias dormant and who [...] |
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