I’ve had bee balm since 2014. Every year, it sends up 20-30 3.5-foot-tall scarlet flowers. After a few years, I discovered a raspberry variety that bloomed longer and looked better over the summer. I planted raspberry and removed the scarlet (to the extent it’s possible to remove bee balm). AfterContinue Reading
At the end of the first season of the garden, when the frost hit and everything died, I felt such a sense of loss. Browns replaced greens, indigos, pinks, yellows, and lavenders. Gray skies joined the brown and muted the landscape. Sunny days only made the loss more noticeable. ButContinue Reading
It has been cold here since early December, at least cold for Atlanta. As usual, it has rained regularly, leading to many chilly, damp days. Looking out over the garden, everything has died, even the creeping Jenny—something that hasn’t happened for the last three years. The air alternates, one dayContinue Reading
The Words with Herbs blog suggested readers create “A Week of Flowers” posts where they shows off their summer flowers, so I decided to jump in. It has been a wonderful growing season here in Atlanta, but next week will be the first frost, and most of my perennialsContinue Reading
How often should new plants be watered and how much each time? Both questions plagued me that first summer. The best advice I found said water new plants every day, then as often as you water the rest of your garden. Having never had a garden, I didn’t find thatContinue Reading
When people at a nursery warn you about a plant, believe them. Here are my four cautionary tales. I had never heard of bee balm before deciding to dig up the yard. It earned a spot in the garden because the flowers are so oddly shaped. They resemble jester’s hatsContinue Reading
On a typical miserably hot July day, the third summer of the garden, I was pulling black-eyed Susans out of the coneflowers and pincushions. (Black-eyed Susans spread like a virus and will fill any available space, but that is a story for another day.) An older gentleman walked by andContinue Reading
