My Virtual Maryland Garden

Rana sylvatica , the wood frog, started to call this evening from the garden pond. Last year I made recordings of the calling, and I'll...

On February 2 of this year, the heavy snow had started to pull back a bit and under shrubs and near walls bare spots appeared. When I l...

The suburban ornithoscopist Under the title given above I’ll be posting some of the interesting, brief natural history videos Wa...

cipolline , not cippolini cipolline , not cippolini For years these little flat onions have been marketed as "cipollini...

× Mangave  ‘Macho Mocha’ I was reading an article about houseplants recently, and among the plants recommended were agaves. No...

With a bit of help from the cold frames, the garden had a lot to offer on New Year's Day 2016. In addition to these photos from my gard...

This northern brown snake was up and about in Wayne's garden on Christmas Day. His garden is home to a stable population of ringneck sn...

I was given this Christmas cactus in 2014. It bloomed well last year, and as you can see it's blooming well this year, too. This little...

It got cold last night, as cold as it’s gotten so far this season. I got up at about 4:15 and checked the thermometer: ours re...

Mid-December gleanings  I made a quick tour of the garden yesterday afternoon to look for things in bloom. I was not disappointed; the ...

Bignonia capreolata  As a boy I knew this plant as Bignonia capreolata . Then, for much of the last half of the twentieth century, it ...

Camellia japonica 'Morris Mercury'  This is a new arrival here, from Camellia Forest earlier this year. It has the potentia...

Tulipa doerfleri Doerfler's tulip is a Cretan endemic, and so far as I am aware it has not appeared in the trade. Mine came from ...

Wayne on the left, Jim on the right  It took long enough: we met thirty-eight years ago, but it took the law nearly that long to catc...

This is the time of year when trees become particularly important to me. And of all trees, oaks are my favorites. Here are stories about fi...

Smilax pumila This low growing species is not reliably garden hardy here and is grown in a cold frame. It's in bloom today, and ...

Symphyotrichum oblongifolium  Years ago a friend called my attention to a long narrow planting of this aster around the corner from he...

Colchicum 'Glory of Heemstede' Colchicums can be frustratingly difficult to identify, and that's as true of the wild form...

Esther Bartning's plate from  Gartenschönheit , October 1938 The ones in the top row, left to right, are identified as 'Th...