Why Plants Struggle In Nature

If you think you have troubles, find out why plants not only struggle to survive but also why plants stress about as much as most of us do today.

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Weren't All Flowers Once Wild? - Wild Flowers

It kind of tickles me that we all probably somewhere on our family tree, descend from the “wild ones.” Nothing could be truer than in the world of plants because all plants were once wild. Let’s explore in a walk on the wild plant side of life.

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From the Garden Into The Kitchen - Pickled Peppers

While interviewing Pepper Joe, I got to thinking about Peter Pipers Pickled Peppers. Now, as far as we know, Peter Piper, is the only person of fact of fiction, who every managed to pick his peppers ready pickled. The rest of us poor mortals must pick first and pickle later.

This is well worth the trouble, however, when on a winter’s day, we can go to the pantry shelves and select a jar of jewel-like red, green, or yellow pickled peppers to serve with meats or to garnish a

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Picture Perfect Garden -- Irises In The Garden Picture

Have you ever thought about designing your garden with the picture perfect look? Irises are about as picture perfect as any flower blooms. Here are some hints … .

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Spring Begins With Forest Flowers

For me, spring always begins when I dust off old literary gardens and use them as a source of inspiration while planning my real life garden. My annual lovely garden always begins in my mind in the spring time. I often think of an old Alfred Lord Tennyson poem:

“Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
Hold you here, root and all in my hand,
Little flower, but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all
I should know what God and man is.”

Another naturalist, John Burroughs, had a different slant on when spring begins and ends. He said,

“ Spring begins, when the partridge drums, when the hyla peeps, when the shad starts up the rivers, and the grass greens in the spring runs; and it ends when the leaves are unfolding and the last snowflake dissolved in midair.”

Regardless of when the exact moment is, I’m just glad it’s here, and more or less thinking that in the spring, the motto of all flower-lovers should be Robert Browning‘s quote, “Look thou not down, but up.” — since the trees are often the first to present their flowers.

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