July 2007
Marcescence is the retention of dead plant organs that normally are shed. It is most obvious in deciduous trees that retain leaves through the winter. Several trees normally have marcescent leaves such as oak (Quercus), beech (Fagus) and hornbeam (Carpinus).
There is of course no such thing as a green thumb. Gardening is a vocation like any other--a calling, if you like, but not a gift from heaven. One acquires the necessary skills and knowledge to do it successfully, or one doesn't.
But here experience speaks: never be too far away from man or machine until the sweep of the last [Bobcat] blade, for those who have watched these men at work will know about the amazing interpretations of a plan that can occur.
Men with trucks do not see new plantings when reversing or unloading, so trees must wait [to be planted] until all hard landscaping is done.
It isn’t that I don’t like sweet disorder, but it has to be judiciously arranged.
. . . A bunch of daisies has a peculiarly earthy smell, especially when it comes as a hot little gift in the hand of a child.
. . . We gardeners needn't have a siege mentality toward frost. It's not a villain, holding us hostage in some pitifully short growing season. Jack Frost is simply one more character in this dazzling, sometimes perplexing, and wonderfully rewarding practice we call gardening.
Improbability is not a quality we value in landscapes.
There is very little in gardening that benefits from being done quickly, and weeding teaches the virtues of pace as well as any activity.
A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water.
Sleet, incidentally, is the worst five-letter four-letter word I know.
We're all experts in the garden, right up until the moment that we're not. . . .Every single time you try a new crop or new variety or new plot, you risk failure. Even with the tried and true, a year of strange weather can make decades of experience meaningless.
That is the beauty of reading seed catalogues while the next snowstorm approaches. We seed in an imaginary spring, weed in an imaginary summer, harvest in an imaginary fall.
