As we slog into the New Year, I want to share one of my personal enthusiasms with readers.   This pastime requires little or no expense, can be done with minimal or no equipment, and engaged in wherever you happen to be. It can be practiced in solitude or with others. No batteries or [...]

The new Heronswood Catalogue ships to homes next week.  Here is part two of the highlights among the 80+ cultivars newly listed in the upcoming pages, both in print and here on the 2009 website. Perennials L-Y Ligularia przewalskii ‘Dragon’s Breath’ – Both texture and color of leaf, spike and florets on a tall plant [...]

The new Heronswood Nursery year starts with 3 brand new Helleborus: the vigorous and free-blooming ‘Pink Tea Cup’; the exquisitely detailed ‘Raspberry Mousse’; and the alluring deep wine-red ‘Velvet Lips’. Helleborus ‘Pink Tea Cup’   Helleborus ‘Raspberry Mousse’   Helleborus ‘Velvet Lips’     Plus in response to the hellebore craze, we bring back an [...]

A courting heron debuts the nursery’s new logo.  The fine illustration was created by Bruce Chandler in 1975 for an excellent literary magazine called “The Four Zoas” which published chapbooks of poetry by Gerard Malanga, Jon Silkin, Andrei Codrescu and many others from the mid 70s, a glorious period in American poetry.  I found it [...]

“Nice place to live, but I wouldn’t want to visit”, I muttered to myself last week as I wove around Manhattan.  My midtown hotel was practically empty and the traffic light for mid-December—a terrible season for retailers.  In the hotel bar guests stared glumly at each other, mostly Brits and Europeans.  The waitress said, “A [...]

I had the chance recently to experience two institutions you wouldn’t think at first glance were alike.  Over a few weeks I visited a well-regarded liberal arts college and later a famous casino.  The bizarre similarities were both fascinating and disturbing. Who benefits? The college is bookish, so it’s not surprising that the professors were [...]

The Great Financial Meltdown of 2008 has left investors and politicians stupefied, collectively scratching their heads in the absence of real explanations or solutions. Pundits sagely call for greater “transparency,” so investors, regulators and the public might better assess an offering’s underlying value. What we really want is VISIBILITY. Wall Street’s savvy insiders basically couldn’t [...]

The newspaper and magazine industries continue their steep slide into oblivion.  At risk, literally, is the public square, since newspapers emerged a couple hundred years ago in order to deliver the news—and often rules and regulations—individually to the newly literate and urban citizens who used to receive it from the town crier, or read it [...]

Here’s a blog from November ’07.  I didn’t think much of the last paragraph.  I was being only half-serious.  However, it was backed up last Saturday by none other than Maureen Dowd in her weekly New York Times column.  I’ve always enjoyed the NY Times, if not always agreed with them.  But when one of [...]