David Brunton

When I started growing in the mid-Atlantic, I was unable to tell the difference between the invasive Ailanthus altissima tree (which I generally want to pull up by the roots) and the lovely local Eastern Black Walnut or Juglans nigra that I want to grow, albeit sited somewhat carefully. Walnuts

For anyone who does not play Animal Crossing: New Horizons (ACNH), it's a video game in which real people cultivate imaginary places, and the places are called islands. If your island is great, it gets five stars ☆☆☆☆☆ along with the ability to grow Lily of the Valley, pictured above. One

Smokebush doesn't look like smoke until it blooms, and then it's got this incredible, large, delicate puff of smoke for a bloom, I can't wait to show you. But in the meantime, here's a Cotinus in the spring, and it's not half bad either.

The dogwoods erupted into bloom this past week. Rain, sun, and oh that time of year, combine to make my favorite flower of the understory bloom all at once. Dogwoods have a pretty red fruit, I'll try to post pictures once they're set. This fall I'm going to see if

If you're used to the other kind of bleeding heart, this one looks a little weird. Some people around here call it "turkey corn" which I didn't understand until we had wild turkeys out pecking at it. I'm not sure why they gravitated toward that in particular, but they sure

I need a structure to provide shade to my hydrangea, and I've been thinking some kind of nanotech could do the trick. Currently known requirements : 1. Shade only goes out during the summer 2. At least thirty feet up, on a durable structure 3. Low maintenance 4. Fixes nitrogen in

Friend Kate sent this fun TikTok yesterday. We have a lot of muscari, so yesterday in the morning I made some tea from it and tried the experiment at home. And holy cow was it cool! 0:00/1×Anthocyanins in action

I had company this evening while picking heirloom narcissus. It feels early, but I think Easter is just late this year.

The sudden warming has tulips blooming their faces off, and I'm swooning for all the colors and forms. We pick them early, still mostly closed, or showing just a bit of color like the ones in the lower right on the photo above, and then all sorts of different things

It's been a cool start to the spring, but everyone seems to be getting into the swing of it now. I saw my first bumblebee of the season, which always seems like a good sign to me. For some reason we've had quite a blossom of henbit deadnettle this season,

The bluebells are loving this long, cool start to spring. My mother-in-law shared these plants with me two years ago, and they're starting to spread themselves out on their own. But she gave me some more from her place this year, and I couldn't have picked better timing for transplanting

This evening while harvesting tulips, this happened. I made everyone come outside and ogle it, because we don't get a full on double rainbow that often here. I took a bunch of pictures, and this was my favorite because it has my favorite tulip poplars at my favorite end of

I mentioned in a previous post we'd been trying out Darwin tulips over the past couple years. I think I'm ready to say that we won't try to perennialize tulips in future years, but I'm glad we tried it a few different ways. In containers, in the landscape, in beds,

Autocorrect really wanted to change "Muscari" to "Mascara" when I started this post. I feel like "Mascara in the grass" would be a whole different vibe. Last season, because of weather, cicadas, growing cycles, rabbits, and who-knows-what-else, we didn't have too much Muscari, but this season it's just everywhere. Muscari

Temperatures dropped ten degrees below freezing yesterday, it was so cold in the morning! I was curious what various flowers would do in the cold, and was especially delighted to come around the corner and see this little henbit who was seemingly unbothered by the cold, and also unbothered by

In the fall, we direct-seed and seed-start ten or so varieties of annual flowers that grow over the winter. The Bachelor's Buttons pictured above are a favorite because they require nearly zero effort between direct-seeding them in late September and harvest in early May. There are weeds, bugs, freezes, diseases,

We saw the first dandelion of the season today, it felt like another sign of the changing times. The wildlife pond had frog eggs in it last week, which were tadpoles this week, and there were toad eggs this week. We saw our first bat of the season, and even

The first of the wild cherries bloomed today. There's been much discussion about the cherries in town, and when they'll bloom, but it's the local wild cherries I always wait for. So delicate, and just the slightest bit pink before opening. I was tickled that this one picked today -

I mentioned in a previous post that I really want to have a snowdrop garden. Today was the perfect day for transplanting a few hundred more toward that goal. Clumps that have gotten a bit crowded can be dug up and divided into smaller clumps and spread around. Here's a

Watching the seasons is fun. The forsythia blooms about six weeks before the last frost. Forsythia isn't a great cut flower, but it is a reliable herald. Within the next few days, it will be time to divide the snowdrops. The roses are breaking dormancy and should be about done

The roses have begun to break their dormancy. Over a warmer winter, some varieties might keep some of their leaves all the way through, but this year there were bare canes on every variety at pruning time. I didn't notice the aphids on this one until I looked at the

Sunday mornings, especially when it's cold, I like to cook breakfast for everyone. Dutch babies are a perennial favorite, especially now that the hens are laying in earnest again. On sunny or rainy days, the hens sometimes hang out under the laying boxes.I have a few recipes that use

With a polar vortex headed this way, and I'm not at all confident about how the hellebores will fare in the gardens. They're delicate at this stage - up until the seed has set, when they become virtually indestructible in the vase. That's probably two weeks out for most of

Our willow strikes arrived in the mail yesterday, courtesy of Living Willow Farm. After growing it for some time, we've been really inspired by willow this year. The sculpture by Patrick Dougherty at the Botanic Gardens in DC was part of the inspiration for me: As was the demo done

Last season was our first with a substantial amount of phlox. It isn't a perfect cut flower crop- it's susceptible to a number of fungal diseases that leave the plant looking rough late in the seson, but this can be forgiven in light of all its virtues. First, it is