angelica gigas

In my mind there are two kinds of fall: "Good" Fall and "Bad" Fall. Good Fall is what we have now. The leaves on the trees are starting to turn color, temperatures have moderated so that you want to work in the garden again, the colchicums have started blooming and the many native autumn-blooming plants are at their peak, summer annuals are still going strong and some perennials are having a second flush of bloom. (Bad Fall is after the leaves drop and it's cold enough that they'd call it winter down South.) In this blog post, I'd like to share some of the best that autumn has to offer.

Black Plants: 75 Striking Choices for the Garden by Paul Bonine is the kind of book that drives me wild. Seventy-five gorgeous plants and over half of them are not hardy for me. Wait. Maybe it's just that half of the ones I want to grow aren't hardy for me. I actually didn't go through [...]

Annuals Our growing season is so compressed, that most annuals are only now looking their best. My children like to grow zinnias every year, and the bright colors of Renee's Garden Crayon Color Zinnias really appeal to them. They like both the Cool and the Hot. (As a member of the GWA, I received the [...]

I first became acquainted with Angelica gigas in the pages of A Year at North Hill, some fourteen years ago. I've wanted to grow it ever since then, but acquiring it proved problematic. The information I found in those pre-internet days said that it did not like to be moved; start it from seed where [...]

Here are a few highlights of my August garden. I purchased a twenty-bulb mix of Oriental lilies twelve years ago, and only a few of them remain, but they are very vigorous. I know I got them twelve years ago, because I planted them the same spring my son was born. The same spring my [...]