Wildflowers

As we motor through the countryside, drifts of gold, purple, orange, and blue meet our eyes at every turn. With these glorious flowers blooming along our roadsides, no one need say never has enough flowers for a massed arrangement. The individuality of the flowers is lost in the general effect of uncontrolled growth. Still, when … Read more

We, gardeners, are human. We want to sway in the hammock when hot days come and watch the garden bloom. No flowers are better suited to this resistance to work than the wildflowers that arrive at their peak of beauty in the summer sun. Every color of the rainbow, every form and fragrance can be … Read more

Enthusiasm for wildflower gardening, especially in the form of a wildflower corner or path, is definitely increasing. Actually, little is needed to start such a planting.  Often, the best spot for it is the troublemaker of the place. At our cottage, there was a gully that vexed us for years. It was ugly, pitifully barren, … Read more

Gardening with native plants is simple gardening. There’s seldom reason to think about winter-killing, severe insect or disease damage, fertilizers, or cultivation. While you probably won’t feel a change to wildflower gardening sufficient reason to throw out the shovel and the hoe, you most certainly will be impressed with the permanence and easy maintenance of … Read more

Among time most delightful of our spring wildflowers, hepaticas are, perhaps, the easiest to make happy in our gardens, in shady nooks and corners where soil holds dampness and the sun’s intense heat does not reach them. Thriving among or along the dark side of deciduous shrubs, they welcome the leaves that drift loosely over … Read more

We did not know what to call it because the word “greenhouse” sounded so commercially spectacular, and it is, after all, just a part of our living space. Then one day, an Italian friend referred to it as la casa di flori, and “house of flowers” it has been ever since. We bought it for … Read more

Although certain phases of all plant growth, cultivated or wild alike, may be mysterious, there is assuredly no mystery attached to wildflowers. For nearly two decades, we’ve been growing wildflowers, bringing them together from all parts of the country until now our living collection embraces some 2000 species, often represented by many individuals raised in … Read more

Many wildflowers, including some of the choicest, can be grown in limited space and enjoyed at close range without making an elaborate wild garden. In fact, when handled individually and planted where they can be tended properly, they frequently develop into better specimens than in the wild. This is particularly true of such rarities as … Read more

Everyone must have noticed the alum-dance of low growing flowers in our deciduous woodlands in the early Spring, but later in the year, after the leaves overhead cast a heavy shade, few blossoms are to be found. Then the thrifty adder’s tongue, or trout lily, Erythronitan americanum, has laid up nourishment in its storeroom underground … Read more