They’re lying in wait outside the kitchen door like children whispering over a surprise, giddy with the secret they keep. Blousy bright maids amid the tired leaves and blossoms, the only ladies of the garden tough enough to look fresh after what July’s dealt them. And though I pass them every morning on the way…
There is something in the air today that feels like England. I caught its fragrance this morning the moment I opened the windows. A greenness that you could smell, inhale, be nourished by. A great leaping joy in growing things and in the songs of the birds. And when I took my little constitutional after…
After the heartbreak of last summer’s drought, I let it be known far and wide that I had officially become a three-season gardener: winter, spring and fall. After all, I reasoned, there are plenty of things that can be grown in the South over the winter; plenty of things that need a good dose of…
With a bound she leaped to the top of a hill and looked down into a dell carpeted with bluebells. She checked and paused, still poised on her toes with her arms stretched out. The bluebells ran down the sides of the dell in rivulets and gathered at the bottom into a pool of…
We had an absolutely blighting frost this weekend, and much of the tender new growth that was last week so fair and fresh has blackened hopelessly or hangs limp upon shivering boughs. Where has our lovely spring gone? On Easter Sunday I wore a wool suit and fur in place of the white English net…
While I’m certainly no expert on propogation, I thought I’d share my little successes in this most satisfying of garden practices, in the hopes that others might be inspired to take a few cuttings of their own–particularly when they see how simple and fun it can be. My mother-in-law is the master of this art,…
Sowing sweet pea seeds outdoors in January seems like an act of faith. Especially when the sun hasn’t shown its face in days and the whole world is sodden and drear. I was almost laughing at the absurdity of it last week when, bundled in my winter coat and hurrying against the cold of a…
I could read a seed catalogue from cover-to-cover. Especially one with beautiful photographs. I still remember the thrill of that first one from Park Seed, and the infinite sense of possibility that it offered me. I was seventeen, and completely dazzled with the notion that a whole garden could come from an envelope of those…
I’ve spent every spare moment in the garden this week. How wonderful to be alive and outside in such a lovely old world as this! I simply cannot believe it each morning as I see the sun rising over the woods to the east that we are to have yet another of these Eden days….
I wanted to show you a lovely present given to me by one of my dear girlfriends, and which has brightened my home through the holidays and beyond. Back in November she came up my front steps with a huge florist’s box all wrapped in craft paper and decorated with dried ferns. To my mystified…
I picked the last of my vegetable garden today, and that upon the urging of two horrified girlfriends who spotted tomatoes literally rotting on the vine this weekend. The truth is I grew weary this year before my garden did. Usually around the end of July it succumbs to the tropical humidity we are infamous…
The first sweet pea bloom of the year is a cause for celebration, particularly considering the attempts I’ve made to grow them since I was seventeen! Last year was my initial success with the elusive little things. You simply must sow the seeds where they are to grow, (after an overnight soak in water) and…
More fragrances abroad in this sweet fleeting Maytime, and effortless flights of nostalgia…the alchemy of privet hedge and honeysuckle transport me again to my first stay on Jekyll Island. Neither before nor since has a place other than my own home been of such vital significance to me, but fifteen visits later my unswerving devotion…
Well, I don’t know if the chickens appreciate the beautiful, fragrant bower of dog roses cascading over their pen, but I certainly do. It greets me each morning as I’m walking across the lawn and I just stop and think of all the happy hours that scent recalls for me…one of the sweetest is Delphine’s…
The End
The End