Plants

Messy garden
Plants

The Hostas

I think I’m making this post entirely because I’m in the mood to shop for hostas, feeling inspired having just picked up some for L (shopping for others is absolutely intoxicating.) I’m telling myself I am making this post as an excuse to take inventory, learn names of the ones […]

Virginia bluebells
Plants

Spring 2025 highlights (March to May 1st)

This gorgeous creature (below) showed up a couple of years ago under a random viburnum in a nowhere place in the yard, where no one would ever see it, and I told myself firmly that I would move it and of course I didn’t for two years. But this is […]

Snake plant
Houseplants

Snake plant gets fancy

The 25-year-old snake plant/mother-in-law’s tongue/sansevieria has decided to put out a flower. I hear they smell lovely in bloom; guess we’ll find out.  Nice end to the houseplant-focused season. In a month or so they will all be outside, or most of them, which is great because by March I’m […]

Design, Tender perennials

Evolution of the Ledge Garden 2012-2025

When we moved here in 2012 I was drawn to a granite outcropping in the featureless center of the backyard. There is something appealing about massive, half-buried rock lying around like a geological shipwreck, and I wanted to “do something with it”.    Inauspicious beginnings: (L-R above):  November 2012, three […]

houseplants living outdoors
Houseplants, Overwintering, Plants, Tender perennials

Orchids!

Most of my phalenopsis orchids have bloomed reliably after summering outdoors for the past three years. They hang in shady areas–either in the grove, under a tree, or nestled in with some rhododendrons. Houseplants, including the orchids, go outside around May 15th or a bit earlier. The orchids aren’t that […]

Living room houseplants
Houseplants

I love our living room

  I love the living room so much. There is snow on the ground outside, lots of it, and we have fires in the fireplace most nights and it’s such a cool combination of tropical rainforest/cabin in the woods/post apocalyptic garden/home of feral nerds. And all those plants do a […]