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Out you go, little buddy; I'll find you in the spring
Just when you thought the horrors of Halloween were over, it's -- centipede, the beast from beneath the flowerpot. It's an ancient 100-legged creature from before the dawn of the dinosaurs, and it's in the house.
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Darling Dahlias
If you can get lost in a flower, the dahlia is a good place to start. Dahlias reflect the voluptuous ripeness of autumn. Their colors can be saturated or subtle, jewel tones or pastels, but it is the intricate symmetry of their petals that hypnotizes.
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The mystical pomegranate is flourishing in Lewisville
It would be difficult to find a more storied fruit than the pomegranate. It turns up in the Song of Solomon, quenches the thirst of the Israelites wandering through Egypt, and is mentioned by Homer in the Odyssey.
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Running into a brick wall couldn't stop this gardener
Mary-Louise Morgan's garden is a lemons-to-lemonade situation.
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Add a little spice to your life and yard with ginger
White ginger, Hedychium coronarium, is one of the classic floral scents. You can file it away in the olfactory memory along with the likes of lilac, lily of the valley, rose and daphne.
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Last glows of summer cue harvest celebrations
Here comes October, the month when we put down the hoe and pick up the rake. It is also that month in the garden when all is verdant and overripe, when fresh, leafy greens and root crops share the garden with the very last fruits of summer.
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WFU team digging into root systems of tomatoes
If you look over the hill at The Children's Home on Reynolda Road, you'll see what looks like just another late-season tomato patch. The plants are small and bedraggled, like most September tomatoes. They've been through the ringer of too-much and too-little rain, too-hot late and too-cold early. But these tomatoes bear a closer look.
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Big garden on a budget shows a lot of creativity
Ellen Tommasi wanted me to know that her garden was built on a shoestring budget. When she started back in 1981, the place was all grass. She had traveled all over the country with her husband, Paul, while he was in the Air Force and this was the place to finally settle in and plant a garden.
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Plants with tiny flowers are delights, easy to grow
I confess to a love of the Lilliputian, a delight in the diminutive, an inclination toward the infinitesimal. I love those little mats and mounds of flowers that are built to spill over the sidewalk, to soften the hardened path and fringe the edge of the garden bed.
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Double-duty perennials also natives of our area
It is always good to get more than you hoped for, a little something extra. We usually choose the flowers in our gardens for a particular attribute -- usually color, and leave it at that. This time of year, however, a few perennials spring to mind that pack a little bonus, and it just so happens that they are all native plants.
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Cucumbers are ancient, easy to grow and yummy
Just about the time of year when powdery mildew and squash bugs get the better of the squash plants, I tire of eating squash. The first few wheelbarrows-full are fine, but then I reach my saturation point.
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Old Salem sharing its heirloom varieties
Old Salem Museums and Gardens have recently begun to sell heirloom plants in an outdoor area adjacent to the T. Bagge shop. The brick patio, dappled with shade from overhanging crape myrtles, makes a delightful little sales area between the Moravian Book and Gift store, which was originally the Elias Vogler store, and the 1775 T.Bagge store. The plants are displayed on rough-hewn boards suspended between barrels.
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A Love of Gardens: Containers, fountains and arbors define spaces filled with shapes, colors, aromas
When Irene Cundiff was growing up in Germany, there were always gardens, she said. "No matter how small a space might be, there were always gardens."
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Taste testers ooh, ah, and again select tiny Sungold
Tomato-lovers once again packed the farmers market at the Dixie Classic Fair last Saturday as the Winston-Salem Journal held its annual tomato-tasting. Forty-one varieties of tomatoes were contributed by local growers, ranging from the bite-size but titan Sungold to the massive German Johnson Potato Leaf, one of which supplied samples for a goodly
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Quite a Stroll
The West Salem Garden Club will have its sixth Cottage Garden Tour next weekend. On May 7, the West Salem Neighborhood Association was awarded the 2008 Heritage Award by the Historic Resources Commission for outstanding efforts in preservation and rehabilitation. West Salem was also awarded an Echo Award for work done to build social capital among all the residents of the neighborhood.
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Tomato man rightly proud of amazingly fruitful hobby
It is that magical time of year again. For gardeners, the ripening of tomatoes -- the first green globes blushing from pink to red -- truly define the arrival of summer. Snip the basil, get out the mayo, warm up the toaster, buy the fresh mozzarella, head for the white bread. However you do it, do it now; that long-awaited time is upon us. Let us commence to slurping and supping and hanging over the kitchen sink.
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Essential-oil concoctions are effective as repellents
I am trying to learn to think like a rabbit. Rabbits know that they are quicker than you, smarter than you (in some ways), more persistent than you -- and they outnumber you.
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Insect ID gives horticulture students a lead on plant eaters
I am out at Bethabara Park shadowing Roger Richardson's insect-identification class. Richardson is an instructor of horticulture at Forsyth Technical Community College. This class is composed of 14 students, about half of whom are adult and half traditional-age students. They were armed with nets and killing jars.
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Drought changing gardeners' strategies
All the signs indicate that we are in for another hot, dry summer. The first few weeks of June were reminiscent of an August dry spell, the grass beginning to turn tan and dry, and the motionless air choked with pollen.
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To Its Roots: Volunteers follow 18th century plan to restore garden
The medical garden -- Hortus Medicus -- at Bethabara Park is a delightful place, full of fragrance and activity, just right for a summer stroll.
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Rose show is fragrant with fierce competition
Miriam Dean, who has been in the Winston-Salem Rose Society since 1968, recently showed me around her garden of more than 100 rose bushes and assorted flowers and perennials. Dean is serving as co-chairwoman of the judges of the 47th Annual Rose Show, which is today at the Dixie Classic Fairgrounds. Doug Craver is the chairman.
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Grass is greener in farmhouse garden
In 1979, Susan and Murray Linker bought the farmhouse that once belonged to L.A. Reynolds. The rest of the farm was sold off to developers, but three lots, totaling 3 acres, were preserved along with the old home, which dates at least to 1912. Reynolds grew strawberry plants, and over the hill was his nursery stock, the basis of the well-known garden center.
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May is time for magical appearance of the iris
You might call May iris time. That is when the classic bearded iris are waving their flags in irresistible, velvety, jewel colors. Bearded iris along with peonies form the backbone of a remarkably beautiful season in the perennial border, short-lived though it may be.
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Life on a Farm
Acold front was moving in. It shook the trees, emptying them of the spent petals of dogwoods and redbuds and the stringy catkins of oaks. Tom Shutt and I stood in the driveway of his 16-acre farm and felt the wind of change, both meteorological and metaphorical.
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