I went out into the garden early one Sunday a few weeks ago. A few, but not all, of many zinnias were covered with leaf spot and/or powdery mildew. Mosaic virus was disfiguring a handful of Cosmos sulphereus. Plants of our heirloom Mr. Stripey tomatoes, with withered foliage the color of a cigar wrapper, were dying a slow death.

Happy members of the Ramblers Garden Club holding my favorite passalong plant.

I’ll be frank. This may not be the Wuhan lab, but our garden is an incubator for some ugly pathology.

It’s that time of year.

Deluxe combination of powdery mildew AND leaf spot

The doctor is not answering calls. Walnuts are shedding leaves and dropping green- husked bombs, and I am losing steam. I should be begging for early frost to put our sick ward out of its misery, but autumn took a turn yesterday.

Temperatures cooled, and four enthusiastic members of Louisville’s Ramblers Garden Club came to Salvisa. A few months ago, the Ramblers asked me to speak to their club. I pleaded retirement. It’s more fun to have the willing come out to the country and enjoy a picnic, anyway.  

Zinnias none the worse for wear with leaf spot or powdery mildew

I offered a little show and tell

Despite immunocompromised  plants, virulent crabgrass and harlequin bugs eating the life out of our kale, there were a few plants to show off—from the simple to the esoteric.

I claim bragging rights for a gift of bug-eaten, one-of-a-kind variegated wood nettles from Julian Campbell, my talented botanist friend. Julian’s two-gallon pot had a bonus—native Miami mist (Phacelia purshii) seedlings. We’ve got a few patches growing at the edge of woods, but I can always use more.

The native annual Phacelia purshii

Despite unstable chimeral variegation, I’ve grown fond of this peculiar wood nettles, though no one has begged for a piece of the bug-eaten plant or been stung by its leaves.

No one yet is clamoring for a piece of Julian Campbell’s variegated wood nettles.

We’ve got a mother lode of common wood nettles (Laportea canadensis) along the Salt River. The three-foot tall carpet is as impenetrable as a mosh pit concert crowd at last weekend’s Louder than Life Festival in Louisville.

Daughter Molly, a talented gardener and forager, approves of our natural bounty. A few years ago, she made pesto with fresh leaves (wear thick gloves when foraging for wood nettles or stinging nettles [Urtica dioica], its kissing cousin). I have dried leaves for tea.

Wood nettles along the Salt River in Salvisa

And coincidentally, this summer, I noticed no invasive stilt grass growing where there are carpets of wood nettles. Julian Campbell thought this was interesting. I could find no evidence online of allelopathic root inhibitors, but the stoloniferous roots appear to shade out competition, except for a tangle of cat brier and poison ivy near the gravel road.

Looking for a tough perennial? Step right this way.

I sent each Rambler home with a roof iris. Iris tectorum is a drought resistant, no fuss, herbaceous perennial that forms thick weed-smothering clumps in full sun to partial shade with lustrous, medium-green, blemish-free, arching leaves and lavender-blue blooms.

Frank Bell’s gift of roof iris

The unblemished foliage of Iris tectorum in late September

My plant came from Frank Bell who collected this in Wolong, Sichuan Province, not far from the Panda Breeding Centre, in 1996, with Dan Hinkley and Darrell Probst.

Here’s the rub.

Besides Sichuan, Iris tectorum also grows in Hubei Province.

Should this be cause for concern?

The iris and the virus.

As the crow flies, Wolong and the Wuhan Lab, are less than 700 miles from one another.

And though the roof iris grows in Hubei, I am not certain if it grows in Wuhan, the province’s capital city.

Just to be safe, I plan to get a Covid booster later this week.

+++

I asked Frank Bell, plantsman and retired lawyer, from Lexington, North Carolina, what he remembered from two collecting trips, especially around Wolong , where he collected Iris tectorum. He relied on collection notes and memory. “I will never forget roaming those spectacular river gorges.”

Wolong Reserve is centered on the Shaotang River valley, and the main road follows this river. Two tributary rivers flow into the Shaotang from the north, the Pitiao river and the Yinchang river. 

The Pitiao confluence is just east or downriver of the Panda Station, and the Yingchang confluence is further up the Shaotang valley, west of the Panda station. From the confluence at 2000 meters, the Pitiao gorge cuts through the heart of the reserve and its surrounding ridges exceed 5000 meters. Its headwaters rise off  Mt. Balang on the eastern edge of the Tibetan plateau .We had our driver leave us where the road turned away at the confluence. A dirt track along the Pitiao led to a stone hut and then to an old concrete bldg. upstream beside a small dam on the river. It was for local power generation and not impoundment. A track continued beyond the dam where the gorge narrowed. The riverbanks consisted of small boulders fully vegetated with bamboos, ferns, herbaceous plants, shrubs and rhododendrons. The track turned up from the river and cut into the rock cliffs hanging over the river along a narrow rock ledge 20-30 meters above the river. Epimedium davidii covered the cliffside and caught the attention of Dan.  What was left of the path was slippery, covered with loose rocks and exposed to the river below.  I continued alone upriver and eventually the way opened some. I found the iris up there among the rocks along the river . The gorge there was very narrow with high ridges on both sides. Further on, the way disintegrated into a rhododendron hell. I backtracked and caught up with Dan Hinkley & Darrell Probst near the confluence.

In Oct. 1998, Dan and I asked to be dropped off at the Yingchang confluence. It is a wider valley than the Pitiao and had a good trail maintained by the locals, who called it Sleeping Dragon Valley. We spent a half day up there botanizing and collecting. We found the iris up there in similar conditions as along the Pitiao and I made another collection there. I’m not sure which collection I gave you.

The Yingchang valley sat directly on the fault line of the catastrophic 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake (69,000 dead). In the Yingchang the mountains collapsed into each other, entirely burying the local villages and the Sleeping Dragon valley. That part of Wolong Reserve remains closed to tourism.

Dan Hinkley wrote about collecting in these gorges in his The Explorer’s Garden books: Shrubs and Vines; and Rare and Unusual Plants.

The Iris and the Virus: The Wuhan Lab and My Garden originally appeared on GardenRant on September 23, 2026.

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Why would I pull out the best-performing rose I’ve ever grown? The answer is simple: I don’t have the space to allow a plant that performs – albeit magnificently – only for a few weeks per season to remain in a  prominent position. Especially when my garden is widely viewed during those months when it is not as active. 

Goodbye, David Austin Lady of Shalott. Hello, mix of mid- and late-season perennials of some easy-care type.

Sometimes, it doesn’t matter as much. A tall hardy hibiscus I have doesn’t even start to bloom until early September, but it’s a nice bushy background plant for earlier bloomers and it performs at a time when I really need color. 

And then there are the plants that pump it out for weeks and weeks. Rudbeckia is among them, both tall (above, lacianata ‘Golden Glow’) and short (below, triloba, maybe? I got it from a native plant nursery and don’t remember). I know that Susan thoroughly examined the “beneficial or non” aspects of this plant – I’ll just say that I notice plenty of bee action on the ‘Golden Glow.’

(I’ve got plenty for pollinators in my garden. If they’re going to get all picky, that’s their problem.) 

There’s no way either of the Rudbeckia can compete with Lady of Shalott looks-wise, in my view. They lack the complexity or the subtlety. But I’ll keep them – though not planting more – and get rid of the rose. 

Another much-beloved rose, Austin’s Abraham Darby – the scent! The form! – simply disappeared. I cut down the dead branches, but allowed the base of the plant to remain; it provides some support for other plants that have taken over its spot.  

I am not blaming the David Austin brand for this or saying they can’t survive in my zone. I just don’t have adequate sun for them to thrive as they should and – maybe – flower better. Many people in my area do very well with these, but I have to reluctantly say that this type of rose is not right for my garden. And I won’t accept the free-blooming landscape types. Or even use their name.

Fall is the time to make these decisions and get a head start on the new plan.

Even in the garden, beauty isn’t always enough originally appeared on GardenRant on September 22, 2026.

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Here in Greenbelt, Maryland, my home of 14 years, the celebration of Labor Day is the highlight of the year. (Fitting for a town built during FDR’s administration to house workers.)  Imagine hundreds of activities over 4 days – a real midway, big outdoor shows and wholesome fun for all ages. Corny in a good way!  The festival makes me appreciate where I live – in a soppy, teary-eyed way. Every damn year. Also, while writing this. 

Very much like a small county fair, the festival has traditional competitions, like the ones at Greenbelt Museum’s Retro Town Fair.  It’s “modeled on the fairs early Greenbelters enjoyed starting in 1939. Ribbons awarded for best entries in flowers, vegetables, baked goods, canned goods, and needlework/sewing.” Wonderful traditions, and still popular in 2026.  Retro is the bomb!

Judging Flowers, Vegetables and Canned Goods

It’s become a happy tradition for my neighbor Kathy and me to judge flowers, vegetables and canned goods for the Retro Town Fair.  Here we were in 2024 in the very act of judging.  

Some favorite photos from this year’s Retro Town Fair:

Presentation is the whole ballgame and no wonder this entry won “Best in Show” for vegetables.

We had several entries using these stunning flowers that are blooming right now – especially amaranth and full-size zinnias.

Speaking of presentation, we rewarded this entrant for filling an adorable frog vase with blowsy roses and something else my app can’t identify. (Hydrangea?)

I love this Three Sisters display, grown in a small garden in our housing co-op – “GHI garden” on the label.

Sheila Maffay-Tuthill, center, is Education and Volunteer Coordinator for the Greenbelt Museum, with volunteers Kathy Labukas and me during the 2024 Labor Day Retro Town Fair.

I went to the Museum’s Facebook page in search of a photo of the building decorated for this holiday and was shocked, I tell you, to find some 2024 photos of Kathy and me at work. This one shows the front door of the museum, which is one of the original 1937 townhouses built in what’s called the International Style. (Like my own home.) The style is known for flat roofs and minimal ornamentation, and it took a while but I’m now an admirer.   

Looking for Flowers and Gardens in the Community Art and Photo Show 

Here’s another festival event I never miss – viewing works submitted by local artists of every age.  Here again there are lots of ribbons awarded, with resulting bragging rights. 

Some of my plant-related favorites:

This oil painting is by my friend Connie Roy-Fisher, a retired landscape architect.  She named it “Working to feed us all.” 

Angela Shearer named this digital photo “Schifferstadt.” She told me it’s located in Frederick, Maryland, about an hour away, so I’ll check it out.Here’s a dreamy watercolor by Sarah Lawler that she committed to naming “Noncommittal.” 

Finally, this submission in the Travel category is a cell phone photo by Christine Doran that she named “Il Girifalco, Cortona.” (That’s in Italy.)  An intriguing garden and distant landscape seen through a window.  

Labor Day Festival shows an old-fashioned love of plants originally appeared on GardenRant on September 13, 2026.

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Wendell Berry died at home in Port Royal, Kentucky, on August 31st. The poet, novelist, essayist, and Mad Farmer lived along the Kentucky River. He was 92.

Wendell Berry, Henry County in the early 1970s. James Baker Hall photo. Courtesy of the James Baker Hall Photographic Archive. All rights reserved.

His daughter Mary, in an interview, said her father was, “…unfailingly gentlemanly and kind. He said the things we needed to hear. And he said some things that we all ought to live by, and that it’ll never be so bad that we can’t do the right thing that’s right in front of us.”

“Be joyful/though you have considered all the facts”

Noble Boswell, a native of Battle, in Washington County, moved to Mercer County in the mid-1980s. Noble is a good man and a talented woodsman. I’ve walked the Salvisa spring woods with him. He can spot 20 morels to my one. The day before Wendell died, Noble came down to our farm to fish along the Salt River with his grandson.

Wendell and Noble never met, but they shared a lot in common— a deep-rooted sense of family, place, neighbors, storytelling, laughter, and burley tobacco.

North Central Kentucky has a long history of burley

Wendell and Noble, at different times and places, cut tobacco stalks and housed crops for curing in their respective tall black barns.

Berry grew up as part of a multigenerational clan whose roots in Henry County went back five generations. His father, John M. Berry, created the Burley Tobacco Growers Co-Op, which created price parities that allowed small farmers to profit from their crops starting in 1941. That model, which lasted until 2004, provided Berry a model of cooperative, small farming that rebuked big agribusiness for decades as farmers stayed on their land.

-Linda Blackford, Lexington Herald-Leader

Mercer County 

Earl Butz, Secretary of Agriculture, during a 1973 surge in grain exports and farm prices, confidently said. “Get big or get out.” Butz encouraged farmers to expand production from “fencerow to fencerow.”

Berry’s book, Unsettling of America, published in 1977, was foretelling. Large farms became burdened with increased debt, overproduction, and boom and bust commodity prices.

The number of large and marginal farms across America declined.

Hollowing out of small rural towns followed.

The average age of an American farmer, based on the 2022 census, was 58 years old. The number of Kentucky farms in 2022 was 69,245, a decline of 8.6% from 2017.

Noble saw a few decent small mouth bass that Sunday

None took the bait. He reeled in a few small sunfish and creek shad.

A hundred yards up the hill, past a sinkhole, Noble pointed toward a corner of a field now in rotation with organic corn and soybeans. He told me he had once cut tobacco here on a two-acre fertile piece with Poochie Bobbit, a friend from Tatum Springs. Poochie was joined by brother Danny, and cousins Tony and Bobby. It was hard, sweaty work accompanied by a lot of needling and laughing.

Noble Boswell holding a honey locust thorn

Tobacco cutters were paid a nickel a stick in the 1980s. Sticks consisting of six tobacco stalks were dried in the field and then brought to the barn the next day. They were handed off from the tobacco wagon, one stick at a time, up four to as many as eight ascending horizontal rails, each person, handing off one to the next. Sticks were hung and stalks spread to cure for a few months.

Noble warrants his name

Good tobacco field hands could cut a thousand or more sticks a day. Noble made an astounding $999.00—close to 20,000 sticks in one long week. Bending over near ground level, cutting the bottom of each stalk with a tobacco knife, he speared each one onto a four-foot stick. Poochie and his brothers and cousins were good cutters too.

The Bobbits, before driving the half-hour back to Tatum Springs, liked to sit in the shade at day’s end with a few cold beers.

Every now and then I find a rusting beer can along the tree line near the sinkhole. Possible evidence of the Bobbits. “Nobody from Tatum Springs turned down a beer,” Noble said.

Burley Coulter, a good-hearted, hard-working rascal of Berry’s novels, would have been impressed with Noble’s strength, humility, and good humor.

I can picture the laughs, the lies, and the easy back-and-forth that Wendell, Noble, Burley Coulter, and the Bobbits might have shared working side by side.

Wendell and Den Berry in the late 1960s. James Baker Hall photo. Courtesy of the James Baker Hall Photographic Archive. All rights reserved.

The Berry Center in New Castle, Kentucky continues the work and aspirations of Wendell Berry.

Wendell and Noble originally appeared on GardenRant on September 11, 2026.

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Gazing on this view of my back garden last month, I couldn’t help but notice the many, many bees and butterflies spending time on the Joe Pye Weed, then checking out the Black-eyed Susans before rejecting them in favor of the orange Lantana blooms, where they also settled in for a good drink. 

And it wasn’t the first time I’d noticed insects’ apparent lack of interest in our beloved Black-eyed Susans, Maryland’s state flower.

So I asked a native-plant gardener friend if she saw better action on hers and the answer was no, but she suggested there may be moths feeding on them at night, unnoticed by me. Good point.

So I turned to Reddit’s native plant gardening sub and boy, did they have answers! Eighty-one of them, writing from who knows where, and location is probably relevant, but their answers are sure interesting.)

Pollinators seen on Black-eyed Susans

Most of the comments were like this one: “Massive amounts of our smaller, native bees, even some specialist bees.” And collectively, the commenters mention these critters seen on their Black-eyed Susans. 

Sweat bee,  minor bee, hoverfly (which have larvae that eat aphids) and leafcutter bee.  The leafcutter, I learned, “cuts the leaves, then flies off with them to build nest chambers. If you ever find a cigar-like brown papery tube about the thickness of a cigarette tucked somewhere, that’s got a few chambers, each with a grub and a packet of pollen in it. The grubs grow inside until the next summer when they chew their way out as adults and repeat the cycle.“ Fascinating!

I looked them all up and this collection of photos shows their size on a hand, which helps a lot in IDing them. 

More praise for Black-eyed Susans:

• They’re a “food source for the larvae of the Emerald and silvery checkerspot butterflies.“
• “They host six different butterflies and moths.”
• “Assassin bugs, and spiders use the plant for shelter and camouflage.”
• “I’ve never seen a butterfly or bumblebee, but tiny bees and bugs take a huge interest in them. Some itty-bitties that I’ve never seen before with cool colors!!!!”
• “Tons of birds that love to eat the seeds off of the dead heads.”
• “The goldfinches arrive with their cute little ‘cheep-cheeps’ and eat these seeds and then make a mess to sow next year‘s seeds, which is great because BES is biennial.”

And here’s a butterfly I saw on my Black-eyed Susans last week -the pearl crescent. 

Mixed reviews

• “I mostly see crab spiders on mine in the meadow, but they may be waiting for something.”
• “Very infrequent, butterflies, or larger, bumblebee, and carpenter bee.”
• “In my garden bed, pollinators go to them when there’s less of everything else. I like to keep them because they have such a long bloom time and birds eat the seeds.”

Maybe it’s a matter of timing 

• “Rudbeckia mostly provides pollen, which is only interesting to foraging female bees during their nesting season. If you have any nesting bees around, there’s a good chance they already foraged what they could from the rudbeckia and moved on.“
• “If observed later in the season after the pollen has been exhausted, will not see insects. If you see yellow dots of pollen around the black center, it still has pollen.”
• “The flowers are so long-lasting that they stay attractive far past their use to pollinators, so visitation is brief when they first open. I do think that they are a good gateway plant, though, as they are quite attractive and easy. So they are good to ease someone into native plants.“
• “For the first week or two after they bloom, they don’t get many visitors. Then pollen visibly develops on the flowers, and they are covered with many species of small bees for the next month or so. Then eventually they stop attracting pollinators that are pretty.”

WHICH Rudbeckia?  If it’s ‘Goldstrum Goldsturm,’ is it useless? (Thx to a commenter for correcting my spelling)

It gets a lot more complicated when you try to figure out which Rudbeckia you have, and god forbid if it’s a Goldsturm! 

• “I’ve noticed about 1 million tiny bees on my Rudbeckia triloba.” Okay so far.
• “R. hirta is far more attractive to pollinators than fulgida, which is unfortunate because ‘Goldsturm’ is a hugely popular cultivar of our of fulgida.
• “‘Goldsturm’ gets pollinators, but it tends to be the smaller solitary ones like tiny flies and sweat bees. Suggest planting it and fulgida, which would fit nicely in a shorter layer in front of the hirta.”
• “I believe ‘Goldsturm’ may be sterile. It doesn’t seem to produce seeds and needs to be vegetative propagated, so it would not surprise me if there is no noticeable pollen or nectar for pollinating.”
• “‘Goldsturm’ is hard to start from seed and needs to be vegetative propagated and it seems like a dud with pollinators, so my guess would be there’s a lack of pollen and nectar. It may still be an effective larval host plant.”
• “If those are native Rudbeckia, yes. If they are nativars such as Rudbeckia ‘Goldsturm’ from the nursery, then no they will attract butterflies, but no bees.”
• “One thing I’ve noticed is my Native species outperform my ‘Goldsturm’ cultivar of ours 10 to 1. If you have a cultivar, our swap them for natives.“

But why would that be? That’s a question asked in another post titled “Rudbeckia ‘Goldsturm’ is a big zero for pollinator value.”

Yeah, there isn’t an obvious reason why they’d be worse than the species for pollinators. There is no alteration to the flower form that would make it hard for them to access. Compact habit in the plants is not a change that generally turns the flowers into a pollinator disaster. The fact that it flowers prolifically and (in my hands at least) doesn’t throw off seedling volunteers may mean that it isn’t producing pollen, or that the pollen is low-quality.

I asked Redditors for help identifying my Black-eyed Susans and got no responses. Maybe it’s because, as a local friends told me, “Who knows what I have? I’ve had so many over the years, from various sources.” Yeah, that tracks. I don’t think I’ve ever bought them myself  – they’re so easy to get as passalongs.

Are neighboring plants more popular?

One Redditor saw the Joe Pye Weed near the Rudbeckia in my garden and wrote that “Joe Pye is a nectar bomb, so they’re distracted.” Indeed, Joe is the apparent favorite. 

Here in my front garden last month, Black-eyed Susans have even more competition for the attention of pollinators – Joe Pye, wood aster, bronze fennel and Profusion Zinnias in the foreground. Even closer are Magellan Zinnias (in two shades of pink), and one lone but very popular ‘Blue Fortune’ Anise hyssop.

So Rudbeckias shouldn’t dominate pollinator gardens?

One Redditor commented on the big picture. “The ratio of number of pollinators to size of a Rudbeckia patch is extremely low. It’s an inefficient use of space at a time when so much native land is being destroyed for housing and industry. Mountain mint spreads like Rudbeckia and attracts infinitely more nectar drinkers. For pollen, grow Asters“ 

Andrena Rudbeckiae. Photo credit: Sam Droege for the USDA Wild Bee Lab.

Similarly, Sam Droege, director of the federal Wild Bee Lab near me, wrote on Instagram: “There seems to be a dependence on this species to form a core part of many pollinator meadows and plantings and I would suggest that that should be dialed back a bit and a greater diversity of plants brought in. Andrena Rudbeckiae is a specialist on this plant but only seems to show up in more naturalized situations and I have yet to see it in any suburban planting.”

In another post he wrote about Rudbeckia: “For bees, this is no mountain mint. Black-eyed Susans are perhaps the most widely planted native plant in America. At least in the East, it does get visits by bees,  but part of that is just due to the volume of plantings. If you plant something that often, eventually everything shows up on it.”

(Sam’s Bee Lab is slated for closure, you won’t be surprised to learn.)

I decide not to give Rudbeckias more space in my garden

Well, I HAD been considering using extras, of which there are always plenty, to fill in a blank spot in my garden, but knowing all this, I won’t.  (I’m researching flowering shrubs instead.)

Black-eyed Susans filling up space after hedge removal.  I’ve given away about 80 percent of it and there’s always more.

A better use of my extras is giving them to people just starting their garden.  As full-grown perennials, they’ll bloom right away, while new plants are still sleeping and creeping.  Over time, extras can be edited out to make room.  As a local friend said to me about this plant: “They were very useful at the beginning for sure, to fill space quickly and easily with bright cheery not-too-tall blooms, but I have very few left now.”

That’s what I did to fill the space in my front garden after removing my much-hated Arborvitae hedge. I now have just one small patch of Black-eyed Susans, as shown in the earlier photo.

Are Black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckias) good for pollinators? originally appeared on GardenRant on September 5, 2026.

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My photo taken in 2015.

NOT these cherry trees

My social-media feeds this week are full of outrage over the destruction of 60-some cherry blossom trees in D.C., with at least half of the posts incorrectly referring to them as the trees around the Tidal Basin.  So to correct the record, I offer the Cherry Blossom Festival map.  The trees being removed are in East Potomac Park, specifically the ones near the East Potomac Park Golf Course that’s being enlarged, etc. (Who knows what exactly?)

Left photo: found on Reddit, source uncredited. Right: Kevin Carter/Getty, seen in People Magazine.

Unlike the Tidal Basin, East Potomac Park isn’t photographed much, but I found these two photos of the golf course, even one with the cherry trees blooming. 

And from People Magazine we learn these details:

• “’Arborists are doing routine maintenance at East Potomac Park with selective removal of hazard trees, non-native invasive trees, and declining and dying trees that cannot be brought back to good health through any degree of intervention,’ an Interior Department spokesperson said in a statement to PEOPLE.”
• “U.S. District Judge Ana C. Reyes declined to stop the government from performing necessary maintenance back in May, but told administration lawyers that she wanted advance notice before the government removed more than 10 trees or brought major equipment onto park property, the outlet reported, citing a hearing in May on the lawsuit.”
• “The trees, gifted from Japan, arrived in Washington in January 1910 and were planted in a remote section of what is now East Potomac Park.”
• “Overall, the new plans show the East Potomac Golf Links being expanded about 50 acres into parkland that is currently being used for picnicking, fishing, cycling and other recreational activities, the newspaper [Washington Post] reported on June 30.”

Photo Credit: National Links Trust

Could it be worse than we thought?

So if you’re thinking the correct location is not as bad as you initially thought, I’ll quote a Threads poster who seems knowledgeable:

Ok people stop with the cherry trees. It’s almost worse. When cherry trees were removed a while back to restore the sinking side of the tidal basin, they propagated them at a place in Maryland and just announced soon they’d start replanting. 

The trees at the golf course some are saying are legacy trees. This is worse as they are 100-year-old trees that we can’t propagate. But the disinformation needs to stop. It is murky on approval to do this and there might be some cherry blossom trees damaged.

As well, these are big mature trees. They are not building a golf course on the Tidal Basin. We can be angry but need to be informative. 

Photo credit: National Park Service.

Golf courses get cultural landscape studies?

Sure enough, the University of Pennsylvania studied all three federal golf courses in Washington, D.C. and produced a cultural landscape study about them. Even as a nongolfer, I found it surprisingly interesting.

WHICH of DC’s cherry blossom trees were removed? NOT the most famous ones at the Tidal Basin originally appeared on GardenRant on August 30, 2026.

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July was a big month here in Buffalo. In addition to the usual Open Garden days and regional weekend tours, we welcomed 72 Garden Fling attendees from 26 states and Canada on July 9-12 for three full days of bus tours (mornings) and neighborhood walks (afternoons). 

Brenda Fox had one of the few truly rural gardens we visited.

After the Fling group left, it was time for Garden Walk, in which about 300 gardens opened for a weekend.

This suburban garden was packed with water features, places to sit, sculpture and – oh right – plants.

Though I was a co-organizer of the Fling along with Jim Charlier and Shirley Verrico, I was also one of those first-time Fling visitors, as I had not personally been to most of the gardens we visited. They’ve been available to me – on Open Gardens for years – but when I get home from work on a nice summer evening, I tend to stay put in my own garden, with no energy for getting in the car to visit other people’s. 

This arts and crafts house has a shed to match (below)

Thus, my experience of seeing Buffalo-area gardens I’d long heard about but never visited was eye-opening. This is what I learned:

Most area gardeners are way, way neater than I am. I had pretty much already assumed this, but I was unprepared for neatness brought to impeccable extremes, as in the well-organized suburban farm of Jeff Leyonmark (no good pix – see the link at the end for much better photography of the entire Fling than anything I have here). Meticulously arranged raised beds of vegetables are framed by ornamental areas, with never a speck of soil out of place or a weed in sight. I’ll never grow onions, no matter how cool they look, but I was impressed. The pelargonium theater was more to my taste. It had heirloom varieties I’ve been growing for years, but never as successfully. 

As always, the houses competed with the gardens for visual interest. One pair of gardeners in Snyder, a northern suburb, echoed the architecture of their house in designing a shed that’s one of the nicest I’ve ever seen. 

This plant collector in the Southtowns had some very cool hydrangeas.

And then there is all the whimsy. Some Fling attendees have made multiple posts totally devoted to human head planters, buffalo statues, gargoyles, gnomes, hubcaps, vintage signage and other objects they spotted in Western New York gardens. I don’t know that we are the garden whimsy capitol of the U.S., but we’d be in the running. Here’s my bottom line: if the plantings are there, the whimsy, in proportion, works, which was certainly the case in all the gardens we toured. 

“My Art of Noises,” by Burke Patterson

Our piece of outdoor sculpture was classified as whimsy by a few. It’s called “My Art of Noises” (after the British ‘80s-era band) and it’s made of cast bronze, cast aluminum and salvaged steel. The artist modeled the cast aluminum heads after an interesting 1933 artwork he had seen by Renato Giuseppe Bertelli entitled “Profilo Continuo (Testa di Mussolini),” which translates to Continuous Profile (Head of Mussolini). The artist is by no means an admirer of Mussolini but he was intrigued by the way the profile becomes infinite. The title refers to the fact that, with a good strong push, the heads act as chimes. Whimsical? I dunno. 

I was thrilled to tour the Draves Arboretum, a private Level III arboretum (ArbNet rating) I’d only seen briefly, but even happier to see a nearby 42-acre rural garden. People think small and urban gardens  when visiting here so we try to occasionally challenge those expectations. It’s an accomplishment to maintain a garden like this, which depends on trees as well as perennials, in the face of a voracious deer population. 

Tom Draves, founder of Draves Arboretum, explaining how to identify trees from their inner workings.

Like other Fling attendees, I got such a sense of place from these gardens. They are so confident. They have created their own rules and made spaces that push against limitations.

Rachel Balk, of Illinois, made drawings of each garden we visited and presented them to the owners.

Don’t take my word for it. Go here, where all the blogs and social media posts (much more of the social media) and videos – so far – are collected. You’ll also find all the sponsors and thank-yous, so I won’t be repeating that here. 

Josh Smith of Buffalo’s Silo City (downtown grain elevator complex), stands atop a project by Marlene McCarty, “Into the Weeds (A Deliverance Garden)” which features resilient, wild-growing plants historically used by women for reproductive health, sexual autonomy, and medicinal care.

That said, I do feel overwhelmed and very grateful for the enthusiasm that our visitors showered on the gardens and gardeners they visited. We didn’t show any expansive and  expensive properties – I’ve seen plenty of those on other Flings and enjoyed them. But we just don’t have them here – at least not with gardens worth looking at. The moneyed class in WNY seems to content itself with seasonally maintained traditional landscaping. That can be quite elegant in its quiet way, but not for a garden tour.

This canopy of willows is another Silo City project, combining ecological restoration, utility (shade) and sculptural installation.

Our visitors saw gardeners who are trading plants, wintering over cuttings, starting seeds and designing their properties in remarkably effective ways. They very rarely use outside help, with notable exceptions. I probably got as many interesting ideas to try out for myself as anyone who visited from afar. 

Next year, we’ll be in Portland – find out more here. 

This summer, I rediscovered my own backyard originally appeared on GardenRant on August 25, 2026.

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There is still time and happiness.

As we all know, good flower gardens take time. Hours. Days. Weeks. Seasons. Years. Lives.

Add it up: Winter evenings bent over seed catalogs and garden magazines. Spring working the soil and planting. Summer weeding and watering, wandering and wondering. Autumn contemplating the results. What worked and what didn’t? Winter returns. More seed catalogs and garden  magazines. Rinse and repeat.

Good flower gardening requires all that. And more. Ask any bride, or new gardener: Something old and something new, something borrowed and something blue. Maybe delphiniums, asters, columbine, bell flowers, lobelia and globe thistles.

But starting over – we moved to our new house and garden about a year ago – is a different matter. As one of the accompanying picture shows, our original, new-house January landscape was depressingly bare. And it only got that way after three guys spent most of two days hauling off weeds, vines, garbage, busted pieces of  cement, and yes, of course, two claw-foot bathtubs. All that from an urban Jeffersonville environment carefully gardened for maybe 20 years, then totally ignored for three more. A thriving mess. I recently came across that January picture while scrolling back through time and place, and it just stuck with me, having given up about 50 years of gardening and gardens at our previous home – a necessary move – to begin over again.

With that!

Some of the old place came with us

I had replaced two rows of repetitive peonies last autumn and brought in a bunch of day lilies. Also moved in a few hydrangeas. A fine artist named Beige Price had painted a wonderful landscape mural – with house – as a new home for our Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. There was an established ginkgo tree – and thank God for that. And a couple skinny, poorly-placed magnolias. a few walking stones. But not much else a guy could hang a garden hat on.

Have I mentioned that original, grim backyard picture? I didn’t remember it being that bare.

My solution. I just went all landscape palette. Listened  to my inner gardener, that nosy, noisy creature that doesn’t like January. I went color shopping, starting over again. It all began growing flower seeds indoors, the March Cure for January, ah, blues. Marigolds in all sorts of zany colors, zinnias in all sort of colors and sizes, purple-leafed dahlias with bright cardinal-red flowers coming.

But here’s the deal with dahlias

Once planted outside, it’s taken them a couple months to flower from seed. But then you can dig up their tubers and just plant them next spring, a much quicker flower process the second time around. And the third. Indeed, my newly-planted-seed dahlias are just now beginning to bloom in August, but what a needed show long after the day lilies have called it a season.

I’ve also been growing a lot of geraniums of many colors, all from nurseries and box stores. I’ve happily got them blooming in showy red, white, pink and coral along the sidewalk. The trick is place those flowers in six to eight hours of sunshine with feet moist and mulched. They just keep on giving until the first hard frost, carrying the color load as our perennials step up, then out.’

Progress progression

It all comes with the new garden.

As I shopped for plants this spring, all I cared about was size and color. I stuffed the taller growing plants well over into a sunny corner, including hibiscus – talk about color – and colocasia and alocasia, often commonly called “Elephant Ears.”  They offering astounding, multi-hued leaves and shapes, enjoy moist soil in partial shade, and are about as far away from January as a plant can be. My lower growing plants went in front, the purple heucheras, lacy coleus and spring-flavored hellebores in the shade.

I thought I had inherited a thick crop of daisies from the previous gardener and that turned out to be true, their white flowers with gold centers pushing on and up in the mid-summer heat, and none the worse for wear.

By June and July, the new flowers had taken over, creating as fine a garden as we had ever grown, shouting at us through the back window, onto the back steps, get out here and check us out. We would find ourselves sitting in chairs on the back porch, beneath the gazebo, looking out across the decorated yard.

We had forgotten how much we had done – our flowers had done – until the recent day I was scrolling through old pictures and saw our back yard in January, lifeless and leafless, empty pots and bare limbs.

Starting a New Garden at Age 80 originally appeared on GardenRant on August 15, 2026.

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In the early 1970s I was fortunate to share a charming small brick farmhouse with a rotating cast of friends in rural Central Kentucky. The rent was $60.00 per month for three of us. The house sat atop a hill near the Kentucky River.

There was no running water. A cistern collected rain from the roof that birds shit on. Our landlord said a cap of Clorox would purify the water. I can’t swear this is scientific, but I don’t recall any of us becoming deathly ill, either. The two-seater outhouse was a safe distance away. It’s a wonder we didn’t burn the house down with the cheap twenty-dollar sheet metal wood-burning stove.  

What the little house lacked in modern amenities, it  made up for as a launchpad for imagination. I felt like I had returned to my early childhood years in the scrawny, magical woods at the end of my Louisville suburban street in the late 1950s. Later I could count on soothing resonance in the beautiful fields and woods around this little Jessamine County farm. One day serendipity handed me a buckeye leaf. Growing a few tomatoes every year became an obsession. An extraordinary tomato pie came 50 years later.

I will never forget witnessing the thick and shiny, resinous, spear-point-shaped, mahogany-colored buds on a yellow buckeye unfurling its palmate leaves. These were the first spring leaves on the hillside deciduous forest along the Kentucky River. Cause for celebration every spring since.

Our landlord Odell Lowery was a sweetheart

We paid rent on time and painted the house for Odell. Brothers Lavert and Elsie hired us to house burley tobacco in a hot black barn for several weeks in late summer. It was a sweaty job that paid a handsome $5.00 cash an hour. It didn’t take long to pay the rent. The bonus was a sense of community in the barn and around a noontime table of at least seven of us, and a hearty home-cooked meal with platters of fried chicken, meatloaf, fried ham, mashed potatoes—sometimes sweet potatoes— collard greens, green beans cooked to death with a ham hock, and big slices of heirloom tomatoes that Jim Wilson remembers as, “the best ever.” All of this was finished with a fresh baked pie and washed down with pitchers of sweet tea.

One of our roommates, Bo “Burley Boy” Hobson, was a vegetarian. Elsie cautioned Odell at the first of many meals. “Bo don’t eat no meat. I think he’s Catholic.” This was said without judgement.

Elsie Lowery 1975

Elsie plowed up garden space for us adjacent to the burley tobacco field down the hill from the house. He sowed tobacco and tomato seeds in early March. The tobacco bed was sterilized for weeds with burning firewood loaded on a sled of thick wire mesh and slowly dragged  over the seed bed with his tractor. Seeds of tobacco and tomatoes were sown and covered with a tobacco canvas until they were sized enough to line out around the middle of May. (The tobacco canvas protected the seedlings from frost but could be rolled up to allow seedlings to harden off and then rolled back on if a late frost was imminent.)

The Lowerys canned a lot of tomatoes

I suppose they expected we would too. We planted at least 50 tomatoes.  Six would have been enough. At least for in-house tomato sandwiches on white toast slathered with mayonnaise to feed the three us and lots of visiting friends. We tried canning, but it was too hot without a strong will or air conditioning.

Tomatoes were my gateway to gardening. I was a late bloomer.

Summer tomato sandwiches continue as a ritual. Fresh sourdough is my bread of choice these days. Little in tomatoes has changed over the last fifty years, besides a renaissance of flavorful heirlooms.

But last summer my introduction to a special tomato pie was a revelation.

Alison Roman’s tomato pie recipe 2026

Julie Johnson brought the pie to our table in Salvisa last summer that sparked an epiphany as magical as a yellow buckeye leafing out in spring.

Lucky buckeyes last September

Salvisa floral in August

Allen Bush, Bo Hobson, Jim Wilson and Charlie Bond with LuDaddy near Nicholasville, Kentucky in 1975.

How could I have gone 50 years without tasting anything so summer divine or as simple as Alison Roman’s tomato tart recipe?

Maybe the August garden looks better because of it. There is no shortage of flowers. Here is the recipe:

Buckeyes and a Pie originally appeared on GardenRant on August 12, 2026.

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After my emotional story last week of being “Banished from the garden I cleared,” I have news about the other large garden I’ve adopted. (Technically, I’m a “caretaker” of this garden – the sign on the left says so.  It’s the landscape around the office building of my housing co-op.)

Readers have seen this one before and may remember when I asked you all “Can these junipers be saved?” Then despite most commenters saying NO, I did save all but the ones too close to the sidewalk. Then I bragged about how much people seemed to love the bonsai-like pruning I had performed on them.  

Then suddenly last summer that perfect (to me) scene turned into this! The underground water main had burst, requiring the removal of two of the four large old junipers, and a months-long mess until the site was ready to be planted again, with something. 

Readers, you may be surprised to learn that I did NOT freak out. Shit happens; gardeners adapt.

I heard from a co-op member suggesting something NEW go in the now-blank space, like a pollinator garden. But to my mind there was only one thing to do – replace the destroyed junipers with more of the same, restoring the garden to how it looked in that top photo. 

(Reminds me of the suggestions I’ve heard over the years to create NEW borders in the garden – mostly from people who work in the building and want flowers outside THEIR window – and I say no because it would add to the maintenance burden.  Creating beauty with less and less maintenance has always been my goal because I d0ubt I’ll be laboring here 10 years from now and I KNOW I won’t be in 20 years.) 

Wrong plants/wrong place

The co-op DID ask me what I wanted to plant there and my response was to replace the old junipers but, long story short, the staff went to Home Depot and bought these instead. They’re the native Juniperus virginiana or Eastern redcedars, which one source tells me will grow to about 90 feet tall!  Also, about 10 feet wide. All sources agree they’d be far too large and couldn’t be pruned to resemble the remaining old junipers, no matter how skilled the pruner. 

Oh, and they’re the wrong color, too! Blue, not medium green.  But THIS story has a happy ending.  After a great local nursery ID’d the exact Chinese juniper (‘Sea Green’), my co-op paid for them, I picked them up and planted them (not taking chances on the staff’s planting skills), and here they are awaiting the 10 years of growth it’ll take for them to catch up. 

In front of them is a bunch of volunteer garden phlox from elsewhere on the property. They don’t look like much yet but by next summer I hope they’ll hide that water main cover.

Better luck with my other adopted garden, despite destruction of old Junipers originally appeared on GardenRant on August 9, 2026.

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Screen shot of Madame Walska from Lotusland’s introduction video.

My bucket list of gardens to see was down to just one – the world-famous, one-of-a-kind Lotusland. This month I got to see Lotusland, so today it’s show-and-tell time about this once-private garden in Montecito, California (95 miles north of Los Angeles). Montecito is most often in news about famous residents like the Sussexes and Oprah. There was also that stand-out episode of “Hacks” named for the ultra-wealthy enclave where it was set.

Lotusland made my bucket list largely because of its masses of desert plants – looking other-worldly to this Easterner – and I think I’d heard of its inclusion on someone’s “10 Best Gardens in the World” list.

Then there’s the fascinating woman behind Lotusland – Madame Ganna Walska, a well-known Polish opera singer and socialite, who bought the estate in 1941 and spent the next 43 years creating Lotusland. 

The spectacular collections of exotic plants throughout the 37 acres are a very personal expression of Walska’s penchant for the dramatic, the unexpected, and the whimsical. Lotusland is home to several extraordinary plant collections…After her death in 1984, Lotusland became a nonprofit botanic garden and opened to the public in 1993. Source.

This month I was fortunate to visit Lotusland, thanks to the intervention of Billy Goodnick, Santa Barbara landscape architect and garden communicator. He arranged for a private tour with one of their most experienced docents – Christine Gress. Both Christine and Billy sent me suggested captions for my photos. (Otherwise, you’d be reading me exclaiming and “SO cool!” “What planet are we on???” etc.  So you might join me in thanking them.

Above is the Main House, by architect Reginald Johnson, completed in 1920. Billy commented on the “simple, high-contrast of strongly vertical Euphorbia and globe-shaped Golden Barrel Cactus.” The  Cactus and euphorbia plantings were installed in the 1940s.  

Here you see the one-story annex/pavilion adjacent to the Main House with more cactus on the left and a collection of Euphorbia on the right. As Billy says, “Like almost everything the Madame conceived, the killer combo of organ pipe-style cactus and Golden Barrel is all about bold strokes.” 

Here are some Euphorbia ingens, in the “weeping” form (weeping occurs perhaps as the result of stress, its own weight, genetics, viruses, or bacteria). It’s native to southern Africa. The cactus is “Golden Barrel Cactus,” Echinocactus grusonii, native to Mexico.

Billy says this is a perfect example of balancing harmony and contrast: All the cacti in this grouping share the same cylindrical form but the contrast comes from varying heights, textures and colors.

Here’s just a peek into an enormous grove of Dracaena draco, called Dragon Tree or Dragon’s Blood Tree, referring to the deep red color of its sap. It’s native to the Canary Islands.

As Billy says, it’s “Go big or go home. In the hands of any other garden designer, Dracaena draco would be a big, bold singular specimen. At Lotusland, they’re magnificently massed.”Near a 1947s-era swimming pool are the shells of “Giant South Sea Island Clams” (Tridacna gigas). It’s the world’s largest bivalve mollusk. Succulents are planted in the rock garden wall.

Christine Gress, Lotusland docent of 13 years, was my very knowledgeable guide.

Docents, and limits on visitors

Lotusland has a impressively large pool of trained docents that pre-covid, led all visitors. (Since covid, about half choose the option to self-guide.) There are currently 75 active docents there, all having received extensive training. (Christine’s training was 14-weeks!)   

Lotusland explains on its very home page that since it opened to the public in 1993, it’s been severely limited (by Santa Barbara County) in the numbers of visitors it can have because it’s in a residential area. The limit is 15,000 general visitors per season and 5,000 students per year, and there are also limits on parking and months and hours of operation. 

(What a shame. The limits not only reduce visitorship; they drive up the cost of entry to $60 if self-guided or $75 with a docent.  And advanced reservations are required.)

And about the Lotusland website – it’s gorgeous and possibly the most enticing public garden website I’ve ever seen.  Check it OUT!

Now back to my photos.

Above, “The fern garden is a great example of plant composition with a focus on foliage offering variations on green, as well as visual textures and forms.” That’s from Billy.

Blooming in red are “Blood Lilies” (Scadoxus multiflorus), in the Amaryllis family and native to Southern Africa. On the trunk of a “Coastal Redwood” (Sequoia sempervirens) is a “Stag Horn Fern” (Platycerium bifurcatum).

Here’s my pano shot of the Water Garden, where just a week later I would have seen the lotus blossoms the garden was named for.

The central pond holds 8 different types of lotus (Nelumbo nucifera). They’ll bloom in Santa Barbara mostly in July and August. Terra cotta pots hold a variety of New Zealand Flax, in the genus Phormium.

In the circular lily pond on the right, tall stems are true papyrus or Paper Reed (Cyperus papyrus). Blue blossoms on tall stems are Lily of the Nile, though not true lilies of the genus Lilium. These are probably Agapanthus africanus.

View of the 1920s-era pool in the Aloe Garden, now edged by abalone shells.  Aloe Garden plants were installed in the early 1970s, with twin fountains made with South Sea Island Clam shells.

Tall palms to the right are Chilean Wine Palms (Jubaea chilensis). These have the widest trunk diameter in the Western Hemisphere. Lotusland’s collection of 41 of them is the largest collection outside of Chile. Most are 130-to 140-years old. They’re native to South Africa; 

And Billy says, “When I see the Aloe Garden I think, ‘If Vincent van Gogh were a garden designer instead of a painter as he descended into his darker days, this is the garden he would have created.’”

Old corals clumps and dark scoria (chips of volcanic rock) in the beds of the Aloe Garden.Docent Christine Gress and guest Billy Goodnick confer in the Aloe Garden.In the Aloe Garden, probably a Red Aloe (Aloe cameronii).View of the pond in the Japanese Garden. In front of it is Zen garden “karesansui” (dry white sand and rock section), which abstractly represents islands with surrounding ocean currents. On the far side of the pond is Chinese Weeping Willow (Salix babylonica). Another view of the pond in the Japanese Garden, including three antique bronze statues of cranes.A path through the Cycad Garden.In the Cycad Garden, hardy water lilies and tropical water lilies float in a shallow pond. The three large cycads at the top of the crest (as well as their pups shooting out underneath them) are Wood’s Cycad (Encephalartos woodii), which are extinct in the wild, thanks to all plants being genetically identical male clones of a single plant discovered in South Africa in 1895, and no female plants have ever been found.
The Rose Garden in the 1920s-era Parterre Garden is planted with modern rose cultivars. The yellow roses along the path are “Julia Child Rose,” and the orange roses just behind them are “Living Easy Rose,” and the rusty-red roses at the back are “Hot Coco Rose.”

Billy notes that “Although the rose garden appears to be a bit mundane compared to most of the gardens on the estate, the use of only three varieties of roses in bold blocks is another expression of Madame’s bold, cohesive approach.”

In the Parterre Garden, pebble mosaics called the “Flame Mosaics” were laid down in 1969, replacing planting beds from the 1920s. The mosaics were created by stonemason Oswald da Ros with a design by artist Jim Minah. The hedge is Euginia, probably Syzygium paniculatum.

My last stop in Montecito was back at the home of our docent Christine, about a mile south of Lotusland, where I was treated to a tour of a winding mountainside garden that would be impossible to really show you. But here’s her view of the ocean.

Finally Got to See Lotusland! originally appeared on GardenRant on July 26, 2026.

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In a gardening age of wild, new wild, post-wild, or re-wild, the new radicals may very well begin to seek more order. I know I am.

‘Tidy’ isn’t popular in modern gardening circles – perhaps because it’s forever attached to the millions of non-gardeners being ‘neat’ with their electric-green lawns and foundation shrubs and never-used outdoor kitchens; and who, through the power-networks of housing associations, often wage war against the rare gardener who gives a damn about those strange green objects that grow outside.

I’m leaving these people aside for the moment – actually, to be more precise, inside, where they normally reside. Instead, I’m talking about gardeners, and the delicate, beautiful balance of chaos and order that, kept balanced, breathes both energy and stability into our gardens.

Wild weary

The tremendous push towards wild over the last two decades can leave the semi-skilled gardener feeling generally unsettled on a July afternoon. ‘Wild’ pardons all manner of sins on paper or on Instagram, but in an Eastern temperate forest ecoregion on a hot summer’s day after a summer thunderstorm, the reality of ‘wild’ is overwhelming.

Saplings and vines encroach from those woods; poison ivy and goldenrod find a rhizomatous foothold in ‘low maintenance’ perennial beds; lines blur and textures homogenize quickly.

Though the new-wild movement has been disseminated far and wide as the new-normal, not everyone has the skill to manage ‘wild’ in a way that feels curated and comforting; and often it is only the blade of the mower or the string of the trimmer that draws the line between ‘garden’ and ‘wild.’

Out on the prairie – or rather, in one of the many prairie-style gardens made so popular by the wilding movement (whether you live in the Pacific Northwest or on the Eastern Seaboard) – textures that blur together and then into the surrounding area can feel visually exhausting, and exacerbate the feeling of being smothered or overwhelmed – even to gardeners who take great joy in the complex systems that surround them.

An instinctive need for order

I am finding it interesting lately that in my most manic moments – when I have been travelling extensively, or preoccupied for too long with matters at my desk or home, it is that very sense of chaos that compels me to walk past the extensive naturalistic parts of my garden that might echo that frenetic energy, and instead head towards the more ordered part of my garden – the kitchen garden.

This area is surrounded by a board fence, painted black and originally constructed to protect the vegetables from deer. In time, I realized that it also provided rest and respite from the wilder planting style that fully surrounds it.

Here I attend a small collection of hardy succulents, slowly and deliberately weeding carpet spurge and clover from between tight clusters of sedum and sempervivums. 

The raised vegetable beds set in geometric patterns are carefully curated. Flopping leaves of chard are removed to make way for fresh new foliage, yellowing tomato foliage is clipped and escaping stems are pushed back into their support cages to keep walkways clear. 

I clip wayward stems of the tall verbena that are not fulfilling their agreed upon purpose as colorful vertical accents, and I de-brown the two rectangular perennial borders that flank the raised beds.  If the gravel pathways have begun to sprout seedlings, I scuff them with a stirrup hoe, and rake the resultant pristine gravel like a Zen Buddhist.

In short, I manicure. Sharp lines. Precise strokes. Open spaces. And it feels quietly euphoric to step back when I’m done and experience a sense of short-lived control.  In that head-space I can wander my curated wilder garden feeling more settled and calm, and dip into the wonder without feeling smothered by it.

The raw energy of a garden comes from the beautiful chaos of its complex systems — but translating that energy to human scale takes more than curating the wild. It also takes cultivating pockets of tidy: places that offer contrast, rest, and balance. That shouldn’t be radical – we need both. – MW

Wild Fatigue: A Case for Tidy Gardens originally appeared on GardenRant on July 16, 2026.

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We’ve all got them.

Tchotchkes. Knick knacks. Doodads. More kindly put – and through squinted eyes – objets d’art.

Unless you’re a minimalist with an inflexible disposition, your rooms and shelves are probably home to many ‘little bits’ that make you smile and evoke a memory (or the image of a dust cloth).  From where I’m sitting right now, I can see a grouping of wooden bolete mushrooms,  a collection of jam pots and two stuffed toy mice that my daughter used to delight in hiding around the house to surprise me.  All treasured…all trinkets.

Many of us continue that theme right into the garden, and despite our best intentions, can end up with a landscape that features a few too many flights of fancy rather than our legitimate adventures in horticulture.  If you’re trying to maintain a good balance between both, how do you know when you’ve gone overboard?

Is there a magic number? A cheap and nasty object that should never be displayed?  The Chelsea Flower Show has just reversed its ban on gnomes — but how much of that was for the publicity it brought to the Show, and the money it brought to charity; and how much because they realized they are beloved by many people?

Not by me, but that’s not important.  It’s easy to disparage the judgment of another human being based on trendy definitions of what’s in and what’s out, or what’s tasteful and what’s terrible; but we mustn’t forget that the objects that surround us reflect who we are and the lives that we’ve led. And that’s different for each and every one of us. It’s why I absolutely despise the legislated, Wonder Bread taste of HOAs when it comes to gardens and their contents.

At the end of the day, a garden should bring us joy.  If you look at your circle of ceramic bunnies and feel that joy, who am I to say that you shouldn’t?   After all, you may someday visit my garden and wonder why I have an obsession with spheres and why I can’t seem to stop painting my tchotchkes red. 

All of that said, I’ve found over the years that the following guidelines help me prevent an ornamentation orgy, and (usually) allow me to match the right piece to the right place:  

1. Group objects.
   The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This concept is incredibly successful if I group objects together that share a common characteristic and use aids to stagger heights.  For instance, a group of planted terracotta pots; a forest of ceramic mushrooms; a disparate collection of copper items.  Then, I might use surrounding planting schemes to give the group a bit of horticultural gravitas.
2. Use objects to showcase specimen plants or points in the landscape.
   While I don’t advocate surrounding a beloved tree with a collection of bunny statues arranged in a circle (we all have our limits), using an object or gorgeous piece of art to call attention to a beloved plant or landscape feature works well – such as using a brightly painted wooden ladder to show off a clematis or placing a single chair near a bend in a pathway. Or placing a 3 meter group of steel dandelions at the top of a hillside (that I still think about in a former display at RHS Wisley). Or that’s right, I can’t afford bespoke.
   

   A simple red chair signals the path in Cole Burrell’s garden at Bird Hill.

3. Cycle objects in and out.
   The human spirit craves innovation, and using the same things the same way every year is just plain tedious. I’ve gotten very used to using objects (and plants!) one season and not the next – in a completely different way.
4. Keep things neat.
   If I’ve got a junkyard out there, I’m not bringing joy to anyone, much less myself. I try to stay honest with my inner hoarder. Have my ornaments gone from ‘rustic’ to ‘past it?’  When I’m not sure, I ask a friend.  (Over a drink, so I don’t get annoyed.)
5. Specify intention
   This is one of the most important questions I ask myself. If you are a plant collector, you will have very different goals for the real estate out there than someone who is creating a country-themed garden and doesn’t mind stacking old wooden crates where you might have placed a rare fern.  If I know what I want to create, I know when I’ve gone astray. Which brings me to my last point.
6. Going with the gut.
   When I pass an object in my garden and wrinkle my nose ever so slightly, something’s not quite right. This may be the result of an immature garden that has not grown enough to “absorb” the object, or the result of an immature gardener who needed to keep her hands in his pockets the last time she went shopping.  I usually give myself a little time, and if I still don’t love it – I get rid of it.

Do you like to use ornamentation, or are you a plant purist? Looking forward to hearing from readers on this one. –MW

Right Piece. Right Place: Ornaments in the Garden originally appeared on GardenRant on July 2, 2026.

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I have but one request of nursery and garden center personnel. Could we please stop treating all customers as though they’re buying the first plant for the first garden they’ve ever had in their lives? 

Sure, many gardeners are just beginning. But probably even more have been gardening for some years. They’ve been through the wars with wrong plant/wrong place, droughts, monsoons, weed infestations and design miscalculations.

They’ve spent a lot of money in the process. Many have also learned the correct names of the plants they’re looking to buy. 

Nonetheless, despite having put in about 26 years with my garden, this is a common scene:

Me: “Do you have diascia?”

Sales associate: “You mean dianthus.”

Me: “No, I mean diascia. I’ve bought it here before.” (shows phone picture)

SA: “Oh, do you mean angelonia?”

Me: “No, diascia. I don’t know the common name.”

SA: “Sure it’s not dianthus?”

Eventually, she asked someone else and found out that, in fact, they had it only in hanging baskets this year and those were gone. All this for a fairly common annual that I value for its longevity in planters. It has also expanded into a range of nice colors. Looks great with lobelia. Speaking of which:

Me: “Do you have lobularia?”

SA: “You mean lobelia.”

And so on. 

In a perfect world, I would be so happy to meet members of the garden industry workforce halfway. They could accept and maybe even respect my knowledge, but also help me fill in the gaps. I’d even welcome suggestions of plants that would do the job better than the ones I’m trying to find.

And let me just add that I have never returned any plant to a vendor and I never will. I always figure it’s my fault if something dies. We’re very lucky in Western New York – and really, throughout the state, as far as I can tell. There are dozens of independent nurseries and garden centers, though many are open seasonally, which makes sense. I need never set foot in a big box for plants or supplies. I don’t think I’ve been in a Home Depot or Lowes for a couple years.

Just do me this one favor. Be open to the possibility that the customer, though not always right, may have picked up some information about gardening and plants over the decades.

(Shown: Lady of Shalott David Austin rose, just for fun)

Two things that are getting old: me and being talked down to in the garden center originally appeared on GardenRant on July 1, 2026.

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I have a graveyard of dead flowers and a spreadsheet with sobering evidence to prove my point. Today in celebration of Garden Rant’s 20^th anniversary, I am finally attempting a genuine rant after 14 years stationed here at the exalted Garden Rant desk. My preference is for stories that blend people, gardens, and cultures. My apologies. I was an undergraduate sociology major in the Paleozoic era. By good fortune, my talented Garden Rant colleagues have always provided cover for me with penetrating opinions and dead-on wit.

Tim Barnwell photo

A few dead plants here and there are not a tragedy.

Nursery plants are not created with inalienable rights.

I tried and it died. It’s that simple.

Allen Bush 1982. J.C. Raulston photo.

For 15 years I owned Holbrook Farm and Nursery, a hand-to-mouth retail mail order business in Fletcher, North Carolina. I specialized in perennials. My customers lost plants. Every gardener does. I played sorrowful with the fake sympathy of a funeral home director. I don’t grieve for long for dead plants.

Tim Barnwell photo

Flowers have never been raised from the dead, but some customers, truly only a few, expected that I substitute a dead ringer. I obliged with a replacement plant. It’s simpler than a showdown about who or what is to blame.

Later, I spent another 22 years in the wholesale business as Director of Special Projects for Jelitto Perennial Seeds. In the nursery world, wholesale is a world apart from retail. Wholesalers will speak openly about how many ways there are to kill a plant. Retailers would rather stay mum.

You are responsible

You are responsible for the plants you brought home from the garden center. If your plants looked good on the sales table, you are enlisted to grow or kill them on your turf. Heaven forbid you drive a car into in a ditch on the way home.

A plant guarantee for life eternal?

In my professional career I enjoyed conversations with customers who needed encouragement, but there is a fine line. What is too much? Those who are new to gardening grow squeamish with too many disclaimers.

You need to water your plants initially, and periodically when needed, but not too much; and you may encounter temperatures too hot or too cold. And don’t let pooch trample the garden.

I have recited gardening perils more times than the Lord’s Prayer.

At some point teaching lessons becomes counterproductive. Eyes glaze over. Confidence melts.

The level of trust disappears.

There is a knockout punch.

“Your plants will live if it’s god’s will,” I explained while, in the back of my mind, I sang  “Don’t forget to put to roses on my grave.”

Molly Bush with Nell and Bell  in 1992

I waited for someone to question god’s will.

No one did.

The question triggered a moment of puzzlement and a response: “Well, of course. I should have thought of that.”

Elon Musk has plans for a “self-sustaining city on Mars,” but I doubt Elon will be packing a trowel on lift off. Please don’t go. I hope you will stay in the garden here on earth till death do us part.

Death is Not a Sales Pitch originally appeared on GardenRant on June 29, 2026.

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My photo of the Reflecting Pool at 8:30 a.m. on June 24, 2026.

Nobody comes to GardenRant for political news or opinion, so this is my best attempt at an apolitical, landscape-related post about the infamous Reflecting Pool. Wish me luck! Commenters, of course, will comment.  I posted political photos from my morning cycling around DC on my Facebook page and made the post public.

Visiting the Reflecting Pool on Wednesday June 24

The exact date I visited matters because the situation down there can change on a dime, I’m telling ya! As reported  here and and everywhere, fencing was installed around the Reflecting Pool on Tuesday, the day before my visit. Actually in the afternoon, according to this report.

So when I arrived Wednesday morning at 8:30, I was expecting it to look something like this AI mock-up that I bet fools the eager-to-be-fooled. But if there were really barbed wire and watch towers, I think we would have heard about it.  Pretty striking image, though, right? 

Instead, the fence is thankfully out of sight, at outer pathway instead of close to the pool.

And the water looked mostly blue! Apparently the nanobubblers and algae-vacuuming machines are doing their job.  

Bubblers and skimmers. Not sure what that whitish mass is in the water. 

Looks like algae to me but I’ve seen reports that it’s paint chips. 

It was fun speculating on these aberrations with the other Pool-watchers – lots of us on bikes, others wielding large cameras. 

Two days after my visit, access to the pool was completely fenced off and the water was green again. The story continues  

Re-imagining the Reflecting Pool

Everyone concedes that the Reflecting Pool has never worked as intended, and probably never will.  So gardeners, can you imagine doing something radically different there – say with more plants?  

Make it a garden!

This AI image popped up on my feed. It turns the space into a garden – a gaudy, super-high-maintenance and high-resource one.

Remembering that I, too, can use ChatGPT, I instructed it to remake the pool in the style of two of my gardens.

Funny thing about the image on the right. I’d asked for it to face the Washington Monument, so it just stuck the Washington behind the Lincoln! It’s either one or the other.

For this one I used the prompt “Remake the Reflecting Pool into a wildflower meadow, no water, all plants, facing the Washington Monument. Don’t show the Lincoln Memorial.” 

Anyone venture a guess as to which is more work to maintain – the pool or some type of garden?

Make it a Lake! Like Constitution Gardens 

Despite being open since 1976 in a super-prominent spot, even locals have never heard of Constitution Gardens.  So they’re surprised if they find it it on their way to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial or the Reflecting Pool, which is just a few feet south of it.

On my visit, Constitution Gardens looked like it always does – a green-tinged lake and nothing much else, besides some ducks.  I wondered if this lake, also concrete- lined like the Reflecting Pool, had fared any better and found out that:

During the bicentennial restoration of the Mall, Constitution Gardens was chosen as the ideal space for a quiet oasis from the bustling city.  The 52-acre park was officially dedicated in 1976. President Reagan proclaimed it a “living legacy tribute” to the Constitution on September 17, 1986 in honor of the Constitution’s bicentennial.

The environmentally unsustainable design was built in haste and on a foundation of construction fill — compromising the long-term health and viability of the trees and plantings as well as the man-made lake. Today, the lake, too shallow to be functional or ecologically friendly, is plagued by unsightly algal blooms, a dying and unsustainable fish habitat, and requires costly, labor-intensive maintenance throughout the year. The trees, which should have formed a lush mature forest over nearly 50 years, have failed to thrive, are in critical health, and many have died due to poor soil conditions.

Source – the Trust for the National Mall, which is tasked with raising funds for this and other projects on the Mall. This video shows what’s needed.

Make it a Swamp!

Now here’s an exciting image and an exciting column in the Washington Post by a climate reporter. Hope the gift link works. 

2 take-aways: 

The problem. “The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has predictably turned green again. No matter who is in office, no matter how much hydrogen peroxide is added, the shallow, sunbaked, nutrient-rich pool will remain an ideal home for the tiny green denizens of D.C.”

But there ARE examples of pools that work, and without chemicals. He cites the Webber Natural Swimming Pool in Minneapolis as “the first public natural swimming pool in North America to ditch chemicals. Since opening in 2015, the pool’s half-acre swimming zone (filtered by 7,000 aquatic plants rooted in layers of limestone and granite gravel) have welcomed thousands of people into its clean, clear water.

“Europe has taken the idea further and has more than 20,000 public and private natural swimming pools. The world’s first public natural swimming pool opened in Austria in 1990.”

My visit to the Reflecting Pool this week, and some real and AI alternatives originally appeared on GardenRant on June 28, 2026.

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The Obama Presidential Center opened Friday, fittingly on Juneteenth, and even from afar, the opening ceremonies were a welcome palate cleanser. And for a gardenblog, there’s plenty of plant-related news to report.

The Obama Center “campus” is lots more than plants

The Obama Center isn’t a traditional presidential library but instead, an $850 million privately funded civic campus that includes a museum, public library, community center, athletic facility, gardens, classrooms, and public gathering spaces on Chicago’s South Side. According to its website, it “aspires to remake a historically poor, Black neighborhood across 19.3 acres of storied Jackson Park. There are ballfields, playgrounds, barbeque grills and picnic tables. There’s a teaching kitchen, with a fruit and vegetable garden, overseen by the Chicago Botanic Garden.”

So let’s not judge the almost-20-acre site as we would a public garden because its purpose is to be a community amenity. Here’s how Michelle Obama urged the community to use the space in her opening ceremony speech: 

Get your hands dirty in my garden. Push your baby on a swing in the playground. Have a romantic picnic on the Great Lawn…

And to my fellow South Siders, I want you all to make this campus a part of your lives, be inspired by the world-class art, check out the books from our beautiful public library – and bring them back on time – drop some beats in the recording studio, hit some corner threes at Home Court, hold birthday parties, jump-start clothing drives, host city-wide clean-up dates. Here. Use this campus to show off this place we call home.

Right “garden,” right place. And this place won’t be competing as a horticultural gem or showcasing elite design trends.  The focus here is serving the community.   

How “green” is it?

Because inevitably, new outdoor spaces are judged by how strictly they adhere to the current trends and demands for eco-gardening, let’s see how the Center represents itself in that arena. From its website: 

The Presidential Center’s landscape will promote wellness, while respecting native ecosystems. Within our sustainable design, 30 percent of the campus site will be restored with native or adapted vegetation, and the use of pesticides and fertilizers will be minimized in all maintenance efforts…

The campus will feature dozens of native plants and vegetation for visitors to learn about, explore, and enjoy.

And elsewhere on the site, there’s mention of Center’s use of  “native and adapted plants” or “sustainable plants.” Clearly not going as far as many native-plant advocates would prefer.

But wait – I see a Threads post about the Center using “over 10,000 native plants designed to support local wildlife and pollinators. ” That number wasn’t to be found on websites of the Center or its landscape designer, but AI did find the source for that number – the plant wholesaler that sold the Center the native plants! (They wisely alerted the media.) 

The Gardens of the Obama Center

The best source of images and info about the 19.3-acre landscape is here on the Michael van Valkenburg website.  He’s a landscape “starchitect” with a long portfolio to his credit, with highlights including the Brooklyn Bridge Park and the redesign of Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House, post 9/11. 

Eleanor Roosevelt Fruit and Vegetable Garden

The edibles garden has room for “garden gatherings… an event series celebrating wellness and creativity. Every other week this summer, we’ll transform our garden into a space for music, hands-on gardening activities, and opportunities to connect with neighbors.”

Ann Dunham Terrace

“The introspective and intimate Ann Dunham Water Terrace will honor the life and legacy of President Obama’s mother. The Water Terrace will include a stone sculptural water feature created by world-renowned artist and architect Maya Lin, best known for designing the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.”

The Women’s Garden

This is a “revitalized renovation of Jackson Park’s historic Women’s Garden, originally designed by May McAdams in 1937 in tribute to the Suffrage Movement.”

Great Lawn!

More proof that the Center isn’t aiming for eco-wokeness, it includes and celebrates a “Great Lawn”!  “From casual afternoon picnics to winter sledding, enjoy a day with friends and family on our sprawling 58,000 square foot lawn. Stop by and join one of our outdoor activities hosted for the community.” Sledding and rolling downhill on the grass are suggested.  

Nature-based playground

Wetland Walk 

“In an effort to support water conservation, the Obama Presidential Center will feature a Wetland Walk, which will capture stormwater that will be treated and reused to irrigate the landscape. The Wetland Walk will contain walking paths that thread through the area, a tree canopy, and a place for children to play. Seating will be built out of large stone blocks that can be used for classes, small gatherings, or simply as a spot to stop and enjoy the park.”

See, even the stormwater management system is designed for human activity.

Seeing photos of the gardens

I can hardly wait to see photos of all these gardens – but I’ll just have to because gardens take a while to develop.  Good gardens, anyway.

So I predict that your photos this season will underwhelm, but by next year I hope a reader visits and lets us post their photos and commentary.  None of us at the Rant are local to Chicago.

Then there’s that Tower!

There’s been much eye-rolling over the dominant building on site – the modern 225-foot-tall tower, called an “Obamalisk” and “formidable” by critics. While I do appreciate that the building’s height minimizes its footprint, allowing for most of its acreage to be used as open space. And I do appreciate some Modern architecture, but not this example.

The absence of windows is mentioned by critics, but isn’t that normal for museums?

Overall, I appreciate the boldness of the vision and love what I read about the activities inside the building but to most people, brutalism (or whatever this is called) is more off-putting than inviting.

New Couple Portrait is an Unqualified Hit

I’ll sign off on a super-positive note – the unveiling on Thursday of the first-ever commissioned portrait of the Obamas together, the portrait now hanging in the lobby of the Obama Center. The artist is Njideka Akunyili Crosby, who based the portrait on photographs she took of the couple.

From the website: “The narrative portrait combines colored pencil and charcoal with photo transfers. The work is infused with meaningful images and symbols from throughout their lives, from childhood to the White House and their post-presidential years.”

At first glance I was wow’ed and intrigued enough to examine it very closely, looking for gems from the Obamas’ lives that are tucked into the piece: a view of Mrs. Obama’s childhood home on South Side of Chicago, one of five Emmy awards the couple has won, a framed photo of their daughters when they were young, the Obamas’ four Grammys, a framed photograph from the March on Washington, the cover of the first record album Mrs. Obama received (Steve Wonder’s 1972 “Talking Book”), a basketball, books they love and books they have authored.

(Notice that the First Lady is centered in the portrait.  I’ll have to go back to the National Portrait Gallery to see if any of the powerful subjects pose behind their spouse. I sure doubt it.).

Plants in Portraits

I happily noticed the portrait’s prominent inclusion of flowers – my excuse for writing about it here, reminding me of my post about the portrait of President Obama against a backdrop of plants:  chrysanthemums (official flower of Chicago),  jasmine (evoking Hawaii, where Obama largely grew up) and African blue lilies (for Obama’s Kenyan father) against a background of rose leaves.

In this new portrait, the plants frame the subjects beautifully. There’s also a vase modeled after those made by Dave the Potter that’s filled with flowering plants and vegetables that have symbolic ties to the Obamas, including okra, coral hibiscus, torch ginger, petunia and plumeria.

The artist apparently uses plants extensively in her works. From her bio:

Known for her layered compositions, Akunyili Crosby brings together painting, drawing, photography, and collage to construct deeply personal and culturally resonant images. Her work explores transnational identity, drawing on her experiences between Nigeria and the United States to examine how memory and history intersect in everyday life.

Akunyili Crosby and her team of five — which expanded to eight as the project reached its deadline — used acrylics, colored pencils, charcoal and photos that were transferred through a printmaking technique to create “Springing Forth.” 

“I print out pictures, just with like a regular office printer,” the Nigerian-born, Los Angeles-based artist said. “Then I take the picture I want to transfer … I put it face down on my work and then I put a brush in acetone and I rub the back of the printed paper. I’m really pushing down, so it’s a really physical process. The acetone breaks the binding of the pigment from the printer, and … the printer pigment kind of gets forced into the paper [and] the photo has transferred onto this other surface.”

Obama Presidential Center’s Gardens, plus a Stunning New Portrait, with Flowers originally appeared on GardenRant on June 21, 2026.

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