If there’s one plant — one group of plants — that equally amazes and weirds out visitors to our place, it’s our collection of carnivores. We’ve written about them before: how some entrap their prey passively with intoxicating nectar and slippery surfaces, others with chomping showmanship,...
Guava season has officially begun! Although none of the egg-shaped green fruits have conked us on the head yet (a sign of good luck anyway), our Acca sellowiana tree has been dropping goodies left and right since late July. In previous years, this level of...
The 1990s and early 2000s were not kind to the carnation. Maybe it’s all the unholy dye jobs, or their association with homecoming boutonnieres, or their street-corner ubiquity that turned the pedigreed Dianthus caryophyllus into a pop culture punchline. The plant was famously maligned on Sex...
It only occurred to us after we received our wholesale order of 50 air plants that we had no place to put them! I had ordered the lot for my new acrylic air plant habitats (coming soon) — and I guess we got too excited...
We believe that if you love something, rather than let it go, you should take that thing and wear it on your head. Flowers are a leading example of this. I wear them any chance I get — including the antique wax orange blossom headpiece I...
You know that feeling…that feeling you get…when you give someone the host/ess gift of the century? Pure euphoria. Finding something thoughtful, clever and useful to give to another person — or yourself, or your home — takes legwork. And with warm-weather entertaining at its peak, I...
The new issue of Garden Design magazine is so highly, gloriously visual that it’s almost fragrant. Its 132 pages join horticulture with the human-made, crisscrossing the U.S. (with jaunts over to Canada, the U.K. and Lake Como) for backyard glamour and expert advice, species spotlights...
“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Chantal turn down champagne,” Ryan said in our kitchen a few days ago. We had a guest in town from DC, and let’s just say…the flutes were flying. The ongoing “sparkling wine as an everyday drink” is a...
We're big believers in rock gardens. Why? For one, that's where we try to contain our mint -- which grows and grows and grows...
Today's summer drink, a beer cocktail, might be our simplest. As much as I love our lush porters during the fall, come July, light, dry, refreshing lagers are my garden companion. Sometimes it’s the only thing that makes all this yard work not feel so much like work. My pick secret shame weakness?...
