Plants, like people, can get an undeserved reputation for being difficult. Such is the case with roses. The hybrid roses of last century needed a lot of attention – spraying, dusting, and pruning – to get it to flower. Today’s roses are much more reliable performers in the garden. Give them water and sunshine and you’ll have roses year after year.
It’s true confession time. Sometimes I assign a personality to my herbs. Rosemary is a wise old woman with lots of depth and endurance that emerges when things get hot in the kitchen. Basil is a temptress, just begging to be touched and stroked and added to the soup pot. But chives – they’re cute little imps, smiling and waving in the breeze, ready to add a flash of onion flavor to any food.
Fall is planting time for ornamental flowering bulbs. Although I am an herb grower first and last, I always have daffodils and other spring bulbs growing in my garden. There’s something magical about how they show up, year after year, at the time when we most need color in the gardens and fields.
Roses have had an undeserved reputation of being hard to grow. I remember once mentioning to a friend who was starting a new garden that I grew roses in my herb plots. She threw up her hands and regaled me with a tale of woe about how hard they are to grow and how...
September is the month when the garden switches gears, moves into cooler weather, and we plant our fall annual flowers. Even an herb nut like myself enjoys having some fall color in my pots and garden beds. Some of those flowers also provide flavors you can add to...
About Ann McCormick
I Believe
Books I Like