Garden philosophy

February 19, 2010My recent post about defeating naysayers seemed to strike a chord with readers who’ve dealt with internal or external critics of gardening efforts. To continue with the theme of encouragement, I am republishing this post from 2007, in which I argue that it’s not whether you kill plants ...

February 17, 2010 Are naysayers haunting your footsteps in the garden? Is a helpful neighbor telling you that your soil is too rocky, the deer are too voracious, the grass was better than the perennial garden or vegetable beds you have in mind? Does a well-meaning friend shake her head ...

December 29, 2008 If you read Digging regularly, you know that I’m starting over with a new garden at a new house in Austin this winter. You may also know that I have a garden design business for do-it-yourselfers, and I’m always advising clients to pace themselves with a new ...

November 29, 2008 In a garden-design class I attended not long after moving to Austin, the speaker showed slide after slide of lush English gardens to illustrate design principles. I understood the value of studying these magnificent gardens, but I questioned whether the style could be truly reinterpreted here in ...

May 05, 2008 Our first house, in Raleigh, North Carolina, was a 900-square-foot post-war cottage, and along with the charming hardwood flooring and cramped closets we inherited a neglected old garden of azaleas, dogwoods, roses, phlox, camellias, forsythia, and an ancient and beautiful Japanese maple. The garden, or what was ...

August 15, 2007 Last spring a mourning dove built a nest in the cedar elm, right over the patio. Whenever I was out there, she cocked her gray head at me but sat tight. Her loosely built stick nest looked precarious, unlike the tightly woven sparrow nests I often see ...

August 09, 2007 Last spring my neighbor Janet was given this scarlet passion flower by several friends in memory of her late husband, Domingo, who loved, she said, red flowers. Domingo was an old-fashioned yard guy who assiduously tended his small lawn, a couple of shade trees, and a bank ...

April 19, 2007 Though born in Oklahoma City, where the eastern U.S. mingles with the West, I grew up in the Deep South of upstate South Carolina. Alternately romanticized or gothicized, this region evokes images of live oaks draped in Spanish moss, fragrant camellias, colorful azaleas, and sandy, piney woods ...

February 16, 2007 My grandmother and I in her garden, circa 1969 A couple of months ago, Carol at May Dreams posed the questions, “What makes a gardener? Do you consider yourself a gardener? How did you decide you were a gardener? When is the first time you referred to ...