Journal
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York, We Need to Talk
York, we need to talk. And before you say anything, please know, this isn’t easy for me either. For weeks I’ve been trying very hard to trust you. I made excuses. I blamed thrips. Mites. Poor lighting in my photos. For a moment, I even blamed myself for being paranoid. But then you went and…
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Confessions of a Weekend Gardener
I have a confession to make. Every year I start planning my garden convinced that this will be the season I finally get organized. I build my master garden plan weeks in advance, convinced that I will finally rip out the overrun hosta along the driveway, and the lilies that have taken over the garden…
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Small Garden, Big Dreams
Gardeners are dreamers. It doesn’t matter whether you’re growing dahlias in a single container on a patio, tending a backyard cutting garden, or planting rows of flowers across an entire field. We all have one thing in common: We’re always imagining what’s next. One more variety. One more garden bed. One more season to try…
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Why I Keep a Garden Journal (And Think You Should Too)
There is a moment that happens to almost every gardener. You stand in front of a plant that is thriving, or struggling, and think: “What did I do last year?” Which fertilizer worked? When did I plant this? Where did I buy those dahlias? When did the aphids show up? Did this variety bloom early…
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The Quiet Things Growing Underground
Gardening, in large part, is an exercise in faith. You carefully press your seeds into the soil, cover them with dirt, water them gently, and wait. Days pass. Sometimes weeks. The trays remain still.The soil looks unchanged.No green. No movement. No proof that anything is happening beneath the surface. And yet, every morning, you check…
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Creating a Garden That Feels Beautiful, Not Perfect
One of the things that makes a flower garden so special is that it’s never truly perfect. Some blooms lean sideways. Some plants grow taller than expected. There are gaps where seeds never sprouted, petals weathered by rain, and flower beds that somehow become overgrown by mid-summer. And honestly, that’s the beauty of it. In…
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Early Morning Greenhouse Rituals & the Start of Dahlia Season
There’s a certain kind of excitement that arrives long before the flowers do. For dahlia lovers, the season begins in the quiet moments, hauling pots in and out each day to slowly harden them off, watching the weather obsessively, and checking trays for any signs of life. I was lucky enough to talk my husband…
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Why Dahlias Have a Way of Taking Over the Garden
There’s something about dahlias that starts innocently enough. Maybe it begins with a single tuber tucked into a garden bed in spring. Maybe it’s one bouquet at the farmer’s market or a photo of a flower so perfect it hardly looks real. But somewhere between the first sprouts emerging and the late-summer explosion of flowers,…