For nearly one hundred years–between the 1880’s and the 1960’s a stretch of the Hudson Valley in upstate New York was known as the “Violet Capital of the World.” Herb Saltford recounted that it was his grandfather, William Saltford– head gardener at several estates in England before the family moved to Hyde Park, New York– […]

Snow covers the garden, and spring is nowhere in sight, so it’s time for that perennial pleasure—perusing the stack of seed catalogs that’s been piling up since November. Interesting trends in vegetable gardening emerge in this year’s catalogs. If you plan to grow tomatoes, 2015 promises intriguing choices; breeders have been busy creating new combinations […]

  At a White House Dinner that gathered world leaders early in his tenure, President Kennedy quipped that those assembled represented the “greatest meeting of minds since Thomas Jefferson had dinner in the White House here by himself.” What’s impressive about Thomas Jefferson’s intelligence is that it wasn’t limited by matters political or philosophical. Jefferson’s […]

The Gift List Recommendations for your gardening friends, and some for your other friends and loved ones: 24” Stake Rain Gauge Nothing matters more to gardeners than the rain. Here is a beautiful and efficient way to measure what fell. This handsome, rustproof model is based upon the Archimedian Principle and constructed entirely in the […]

Although her first love was painting, Jacqueline van der Kloet seems to have made her peace with the medium her parents thought more practical—garden design. Her remarkable gardens both private and public throughout Europe, and in recent years, several highly visible U.S. gardens, including Millenium Park in Chicago and Battery Park in NYC, are testaments […]

Windswept at the Berkshire Botanical Garden On the grounds of one of the oldest botanic gardens in the country, an exhibit that interacts with breezes large and small welcomes garden visitors this summer. Windswept is as multifaceted as the garden itself, which is located in Stockbridge, Massachusetts on fifteen cultivated acres and includes three greenhouses. […]

Not long after she married financier and philanthropist Ogden Mills in 1882, Ruth Livingston inherited her childhood home in Staatsburg, New York.  With views of the Catskill Mountains, the house at Staatsburg perches over sweeping lawns that stop just short of the Hudson River. The Livingston family had been prominent landowners in the Hudson Valley […]

Located precisely on the dividing line between the states of New York and New Jersey is a greenhouse and gardens that helped shape American garden history. It is the garden of Helena Rutherford Ely at Meadowburn farm in Vernon, New Jersey. She was the much celebrated author of A Woman’s Hardy Garden, first published in […]

The very first glasshouses were not entirely made of glass. That is, their construction did not entail four walls that consisted primarily of glass. But they were surprisingly large, and designed for a specific purpose—the storage of container-grown citrus trees in winter. In Italy these “limonaia” (related to the “orangerie” later developed in France) had […]

As part of an annual tradition at Smith College, in Northampton, Massachusetts, rooted ivy cuttings are distributed to each incoming first year student–just one indicator of the botanic leanings of this prestigious women’s college. With late winter’s days lengthening, Smith’s Lyman Conservatory– one of the few remaining plant conservatories in the United States built in […]

It may be cold and bleak outdoors, but this is definitely a time of year when it’s easy to appreciate the advantages of greenhouse gardening. Just take your cue from the Conservatory of Wave Hill, a public garden located in the Bronx, New York. Here, the fragrances and colors of other climes help us momentarily […]