January is trade show month and there is no better trade show in the country, in my opinion, than MANTS. The Mid-Atlantic Nursery Trade Show, this year, was January 8-10. Celebrating its 50th year, MANTS was conceived as a “vehicle to stimulate commerce for the...
Picking up on where I left off last month, the spring equinox is now 48 days and counting from the time this publication “hits the shelves”. And that means more plants to get excited about! February 2020 has 29 days, a leap year...
“In 2020, the spring equinox (also called the March equinox or vernal equinox) falls on Thursday, March 19,” 78 days from the publication of this issue of the Gardener News. “This event marks the astronomical first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere” (almanac.com). In other words, gardening...
Perhaps Rev. Edward Sorin, C.S.C., saw the legendary sycamore tree standing in the rear of Corby Hall, at the University of Notre Dame du Lac (Our Lady of the Lake), in 1842? Planning his landscape to build a Catholic University, some 500+ acres...
Whenever I think about Bald Cypress, Taxodium distichum, it always conjures up memories of Jerry Lewis and the MDA Labor Day Telethon’s he did. Raising money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, Mr. Lewis would often perform the Radio Announcer’s Test, a complicated tongue-twister...
Given the gift of travel at a very young age, I was fortunate that my parents took me everywhere growing up. Now, almost at the end of my forties, my wife and I share our love of travel with our daughter. This past...
The first recorded use of the phrase penny-wise and pound-foolish was by Joseph Addison in his daily publication The Spectator (1712): “I think a woman who will give up herself to a man in marriage, where there is the least room for such...
One of my favorite children’s books is The Lorax written by Dr. Seuss. “It chronicles the plight of the environment and the Lorax is the titular character, who “speaks for the trees” and confronts the Once-ler, who causes environmental degradation” (Wikipedia). The story...
I love my work! One of the things I sometimes do on my day off is visit other Independent Garden Centers. Always trying to be better at my craft, I gain perspective, get inspired, sometimes steal ideas and look and listen at what others...
Last summer, I was approached by a very good customer to solve a problem at one of her commercial properties. It seems, over the years, attempts to have a colorful, durable plant survive being embedded within Belgian Block, concrete and surrounded by steel fencing had...