We all know what is said about best-laid plans. It is probably near kin to Murphy’s Law. Those cliche fairies are at work again, meaning the ink was barely dry on the newsprint before something went haywire. Last weekend’s column about Bangor’s Garden Show mentioned one of its vendors and ...

Dazed and confused. It has been my perpetual state this month. The natural world agrees. The snow crocuses were in bloom on the first day of spring. The buds on the red maples have swollen up like it’s May. Little leaves have emerged on the St. John’s wort. And the ...

Sometimes I think a vegetable gets a bad name. Literally. Take the parsnip. It sounds a bit harsh with that whole “nip” thing. I am not forgetting that the taste can be somewhat repellent if the root isn’t sweetened up by a good frost or two, but still. That name. ...

The longstanding, short-sighted tradition of my Instamatastic Garden Carols continues by ripping through that delightful-but-not-applicable-in-most-of-Maine-at-this-time melody “Winter Wonderland.” The eighth installment was inspired by the frenzy of gray tree frogs that littered the yard — one on the deck and one in the wee pop-up greenhouse — livening up the ...

Sometimes even I am trendy, although I don’t usually find out until the parade has swept by. I never would have guessed, however, that the trend would be to plant a myrtle. Myrtus communis isn’t exactly a Maine-friendly plant since it likes the warmer environs of Georgia and Florida, so ...