The Japanese flower from Japan—that’s literally what the Latin name Nipponanthemum nipponicum translates to in English. I like to imagine the botanists who named this plant had a wicked sense of humor, or maybe they were just feeling particularly literal that day. Latin name aside, this week’s plant is new to me—a discovery I made […]

I trust that you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We loaded up our car Tuesday night and departed Maine for North Carolina at 4 a.m. on Wednesday morning. It was a long drive, but our kids were great—no small feat considering we were covering over 1,000 miles in a single day. We finally rolled into my […]

Along the coast of Maine as we are readying for Christmas, our outdoor cultivation has come to a screeching halt as the ground is covered by a foot and a half of snow. To add emphasis to this being the time of the shortest days of the year, a half inch of ice fell the […]

If you followed the news much in the past week, you undoubtedly heard about archaeologists confirming the remains of Richard III. A team found his skeleton under a parking lot in the middle of England last summer. They recently confirmed that these remains were his by tracing the DNA back from modern-day descendants. I believe […]

You know that rare moment in gardening when a design comes together exactly as you envisioned? When the colors, textures, and heights you planned actually manifest, as if the plants themselves understood the assignment? That happened for me this year with Angelica gigas. I had long wanted to see this Korean angelica planted in a […]