Now that there can be no doubt that we are in the clutches of the evil Wanda Winter, I feel the strong pull to immerse myself into the new plant and seed catalogues and in the process actually escape and embrace winter.

“Both escape and embrace winter?”, you ask. My, you are a nosy one. I’ll be nice and not tell you to mind your own damn business. For me searching through the catalogues this time of year really is an escape and an embrace of winter. Read the rest of this entry »

As Irvin so beautifully illustrated last week, winter has arrived. I have had to break out my heavy coat and glove liners for working in the gardens.  At home, I’ve had to light the furnace and there have been “three-cat-nights.”  But if I see one more Snuggie or Dreamie commercial , I’ll scream. Read the rest of this entry »

Well, I think winter may have finally arrived, perhaps not on the calendar but in pretty much every other way.

Icy roads. Short days. Bitter winds. Freezing temperatures. The bloody freaking temperatures absolutely scream winter. It’s especially a slap in the face after the extremely long beautiful autumn. But that was then and this is now and winter will be what it wants to be. Read the rest of this entry »

When I came to the IMA in 2002, one of the areas assigned to me was the Garden Terrace building and the adjacent Four Seasons Garden.  The building was constructed in 1939-40 by J. K Lilly, Jr. as a recreation center for the estate, including an indoor bowling alley plus indoor and outdoor swimming pools. The surrounding gardens were designed by Louisville-based landscape architect Anne Bruce Haldeman (the garden’s restoration and interpretation of the place of women in landscape architecture is a goal of the IMA Environmental and Historic Preservation Division).

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I simply cannot get it out of my head. This fall is absolutely beautiful – from all the great color to the nearly perfect temperatures day after day. And though I wrote on a similar topic last post I must return to the gorgeousness of things again. To not go on and on about this fall would be a double sin no doubt. It should be cold, damp, and gray by now. Leaves should be brown and fallen. Even late perennials should be finished. Tropicals should have long since been put to bed for winter. But it’s not that way at all. It’s sunny and warm out. Red and gold leaves still hang on the trees. Perennials are still flowering. Brugmansias are blooming outside my office window. It’s all wrong. But it’s so all right.

I am still digging tropicals and other non-hardies at home. If the weather had not been so great I would be in deep double-dug doo-doo. As it is, I’m sort of leisurely going along – but admittedly starting to look over my shoulder for “real” November weather. Whether it was the cooler summer or the steady rains I don’t know but many plants did extra good this year. The Amorphophallus konjac got huge. Read the rest of this entry »