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 [https://www.livingwillowfarm.com]. 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 [https://www.usbg.gov/Dougherty]was part of

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

A couple days of warmth combined with spring rain have finally brought out the first of the daffodils. As a general rule, we like to order flowers at the moment they are blooming, and when there's nothing blooming, we like to order ones that would be blooming if we had

The buds have begun to swell, all the harbingers of spring. The promise of flowers carried over from the previous season are signaling their intent to burst into blossom as soon as the warmth and light of spring give them the signal. Dogwoods getting ready for spring bloom.Forsythia, lilac,

We planted a lot of Darwin Hybrid tulips two years ago, in the hopes they would bloom again after the first season. This will be the spring when we sort out how that plan worked, and so far the results are mixed. Our two main tulip predators are voles and

This week has seen all the signs of spring: the first hellebore [https://www.davidbrunton.com/spring-will-sprung/], the first crocus [https://www.davidbrunton.com/spring-will-sprung/], the spring thaw [https://www.davidbrunton.com/soil-can-be-worke/]. Now, only slightly out of order, we're seeing the signs that winter is drawing to a close.