horticulture

It takes exact amounts of rain, light, and heat for buds to open together and result in a few days of rare beauty. It might also, I was startled to realize, take more hours of gardening to create an ideal combination than the number of hours it lasted, but that was of little importance to me. After all, by then I had become a gardener.

In a lot of ways, I'm just hitting my stride, just a little more tired while striding.

Pruning is an art and a science. The rules are simple, but putting them into practice requires skill and judgment. Looking around, I gather that almost everyone leaves the job to an unskilled yardman with years of inexperience.