AND WHAT OF anemones, LittleBird Janet, our fearless leader, asks. Such great fall flowers.
Ah, Janet:
Assumably*, the mention of anemones was spawned by my last column, on liriope, which, by the way, caused a foofarah on a local gardening site, a…

Green Acre #212: Falling for (Fall) Anemones

SOME YEARS AGO, it could be a decade, my friend Maggie and I were walking along Pennsylvania Avenue on a mild and lovely fall afternoon, the Capitol dome shining bright white behind us, when a young woman guided her dog over the low, looping iron…

Green Acre #212: Loving Liriope

I have never liked open plan living, much preferring doors, walls, closets, cupboards, basements, attics, garages – particularly now, when there’s nowhere to go, and the biggest thrill of the year, so far, is the reopening of the Safeway.…

Under the Hill of Clutter?

MY SISTER JEANIE once had a summer job, sleeping in a luxurious bed in the window of a New York City department store. Talk about exhausting work.
This was in the late 1940s, before I was born. While many of our family stories extend the truth with,…

Green Acre #211: Happy Quarantine Birthday

SOME PEOPLE reach for the Bible when life seems, shall we say, infertile.
I reach for Henry Mitchell.
Thinking I was out of thoughts for this week, I picked up The Essential Earthman, let it fall open wherever it would, and landed on the chapter…

Green Acre #209: Inspirations From the Wild

LittleBird “Stephanie Gardens” doesn’t have all the answers, but she’ll research some if you submit questions to her. You can just add a Comment to this post, and the question will be forwarded to our Green Acre columnist. Meanwhile, back to our…

Green Acre: #208: Lei-ing Low in DC

TOMATOES? Herbs? Hydrangeas? I do love getting your questions. Here’s a fine trio that scampered into my morning mail . . .
Dear “Stephanie Gardens”:
I love your columns, but you never talk about growing vegetables in a city garden. Heirloom…

Green Acre #207: Needy Veggies, Wimpy Herbs and a Floppy Hydrangea

NOTE: You can send gardening questions to LittleBird Stephanie by putting them in a Comment to this column.
THIS IS my 12th column about the damn raccoon.
The first was in September of 2017, when the loathsome marauder eviscerated the fat, juicy pond…

Green Acre #206: The Predator Returns

WHY ANYONE would ask me questions about gardening, I don’t know. Have you noticed that I ditch any horticultural adventure that appears to be failing? Often, my best advice is for you to do so as well.
So I am startled to have received not one, not…

Green Acre #205: ‘Stephanie Gardens’ Answers Your Questions

LittleBird Stephanie’s quest began with a bottle of Seville orange fragrance imported from Spain. Back home the quest led to—where else?—the Internet.
BABY WENT to Spain last year, a time, you may recall, when people hopped on planes to places such…

Green Acre #204: Bitter(s) Gardens

THERE ARE ROSES in Baby’s garden: floribundas, hybrid teas, and scentless (but prolific) red Knock Outs. These have names like Fragrant Plum, Sunshine Happy Trails and Fun in the Sun, which is about as much fun in the sun as she’ll likely have in…

Green Acre #203: Rose Is a Rose Is a . . . Garden

THAT GREAT FAT white blossom on the new gardenia that I wrote (and wrote and wrote) about last week?
It did what it gardenia blossoms always do for me: fizzled and fell off like a little bird dying on a branch and falling flat to the ground, little…

Green Acre #202: Made for the Shade

THE NEW GARDENIA is about to bloom; one of the fat buds is ripening on the little bush. At least I assume it will bloom, though I do get into trouble assuming things. I buy a gardenia every year, it seems, and every year it up and dies, having done…

Green Acre #201: Her Garden Makes Scents

SUDDENLY IT’S summer. Thankfully, at least around Washington DC, the major gardening work has been done and what will be, will be. Well, in time we’ll find a number of things that didn’t do, that fizzled, dried up, performed in some unpleasing manner…

Green Acre #200: Who’s Poolin’ Who?

WE SOCIAL-DISTANCED dinner on the back porch with Judith and Robert last week. A bowl of taco chips and queso for them, sitting on the sofa, another for us, sitting in wicker chairs on the other side of the ottoman that serves as the coffee table. No…

Green Acre #199: We All Need a Porch Now

HORTENSE WAS fascinated by the annual Moving of the Plants. She was making dovish noises and tilting her head this way and that, red eyes wondering: Will I be next?
I spent a few moments contemplating the installation of a dovecote in the back…

Green Acre #198: The Moving of the Plants

‘WHEN YOU get dressed, could you come outside and help me with some plants?” My Prince asked. It was 4 o’clock in the afternoon and I was still in my sleeping ensemble.
“I was just thinking about it,” I said. I’d been up since 6am and hadn’t quite…

Green Acre #197: Curb Your Plants

‘HOW MANY are too many chandeliers?” asked My Prince, admiring a new installation above the garden path.
This was a startling (and not particularly manly) question, I thought, though it gave me great ruffles of pleasure. “I don’t know, but we’ll find…

Green Acre #196:

AFTER 37 SUMMERS, the front yard is finally what one might call established—in great part thanks to having finally triumphed over the postal persons who for years trampled a path across the garden while talking (loudly) on their cell phones. Between…

Green Acre #195: Garden up Close, Mother’s Day From Afar

IT’S FUNNY to think that 40 years ago or so Washington’s National Arboretum was one of the least visited sights in the city. One could wander the 446-acre garden with its splendid roses, bonsai, hills blazing with azaleas, the dogwood grove, the…