Over 1,200 visitors enjoyed our gardens in the Pacific Northwest last Saturday between 10 A.M. and 4 P.M.—a pace of about 200 per hour. The Garden Conservancy Open Days Director, Laura Palmer, and I estimated that over 80% had never visited the gardens, leaving about 250 multiple time visitors. Our guess was that only about 50 were the true believers, a proud and mostly peaceful band that includes former employees… Continue reading

In 2001, I suffered a touch football accident, falling over a bluff next to the lawn where we were playing, cracking my ribs and puncturing my left lung. After catching a pass, I landed on the ball with one of the ends pointed to my chest, so the ribs shattered rather than broke; fragments were sandwiched between the collapsed lung and the skin. My surgeon, Dr. David Dieter of Central… Continue reading

Over the past decade, an enormous, extraordinary botanic garden was carved just off the Atlantic Ocean shoreline of Maine’s central coast. Dedicated, risk-taking locals (full-time residents) as well as summer people took on the project when a luxury housing development fell through and the beautiful location became available.

With 228 acres on a bluff above a back river a few hundred yards from the surf, and nearly a mile of waterfront… Continue reading

While out at Heronswood last week, I noticed the unexpected beauty of garden litter. I enjoyed the natural, flocking effects the earth-toned confetti gave the large, flat leaves of Petasites japonica and the glossy Darmera peltata. Our magical paths and border margins are covered with debris. It reminds me that a lot more is going on in the garden besides our careful, hand-tending cultivation.

Public gardens are particularly emphatic about keeping… Continue reading

If I hadn’t heard the chatter when I was at Heronswood Gardens last week, I might have missed Boeing’s saturation PR about its new jet aircraft, the 787. The buzz was brewing all over Seattle.

Two dramatic innovations make their debut: a newly designed wing and a composite skin covering half the plane. Add to them a new jet engine that consumes 20% less fuel while carrying the same number of… Continue reading

Our top fifteen best selling rare and unusual cultivars will be ready to ship early September, right in time for your first frenzy of fall planting. Not only are these our most popular items, they are among our most spectacular. Plus, they represent every condition, location and style to be found in a well loved collector’s perennial garden.

Order now to be the first customer to receive our excellent 2008 production… Continue reading

Seasonal sounds and solar sights. Liner notes on an old record likens a symphony to a spring garden, wind in the trees, and dazzling flower heads.

Western classical culture celebrates the sky gods—church music and courtly dances called by divine kings. “Above ground”, celestial, heavenly. Not about the guy below.

In contrast, modern music celebrates the earth, metabolism, secret passages, bright air, immediate surroundings. Stravinsky’s ecstasies, Debussy’s shimmering colors, Faure’s haunting melodies.

Improvisational… Continue reading