The Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York—most often associated with yoga and alternative philosophies — decided to apply mindfulness to a very practical matter. The Omega Center for Sustainable Living (OCSL ) opened in 2009. At the heart of the OCSL is the Eco Machine ™, designed by John Todd Ecological Design. This water reclamation […]

The trees are abandoning their leaves, the perennials are giving up on their leaves and stems and I’m dumping out my pots of annuals. And all the abandoned plant debris from the yard, garden or greenhouse ends up in the compost. I’m amazed every March to find a bounty of compost in bins that started […]

Colin Cabot was standing at the edge of a steep ravine in the gardens of Les Quatre Vents (The Four Winds). A swaying Nepalese-style rope bridge hung in a downward arc between the ravine’s precipitous banks. “Who wants to go first?” Colin was leading forty of us garden writers and photographers on a private tour […]

Meadowbrook, a 25 acre-estate in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, was designed and created by the floral artist, J. Liddon Pennock, Jr.  Mr. Pennock grew up in Philadelphia, where his family had operated a florist shop for over 100 years. He attended Cornell University, but was called home to help save the family business in 1933. That business […]

Now is the time I have to steel myself against the autumn gardener’s worst enemy: complacency. We’re having lovely weather at the beginning of October, with clear blue skies, low humidity and days in the upper 70s or low 80s. Though most flowers except the toad lilies, the last anemones, turtlehead and a few unwary […]