Louisiana’s huge cypresses have been destroyed in the name of better gardens. But switching to pine straw won’t solve forest loss.

“Cutting an 80-to-100-year-old cypress tree for mulch is like taking your dining room furniture and burning it for firewood.” So says John Day, Louisiana

Joining forces, a great map-making firm and an accomplished botanical illustrator created a wonder of the world. 

Are you on a journey this August? Having a staycation? Even better. No suitcase required to travel in David Rumsey’s stunning, searchable, magnifiable, historical and outright gorgeous collection

Showman, designer, and mobile gardener Simple bids farewell (kind of) to his wonderland before moving on to his next adventure in grow and glow.

I am impressed by those who love their gardens. I like all sorts and have shamelessly cribbed from many. I admire

John Lennon named his final album for a freesia, a rare cultivar he encountered in a Bermuda garden.

After more than three mysterious years— childrearing? shooting junk? trying ultra-seclusion after decades of percolation through the public nervous system? – John Lennon was emerging in late

Wolfgang Laib paints with pollen in Sydney, Australia.

The yellow rectangle, radiant but soft around the edges, is reminiscent of Mark Rothko’s pulsing paintings of the 1950s. But this piece is ultra contemporary, made from freshly gathered tree pollen.

Wolfgang Laib’s Pollen from Pine and

The national flower of Jamaica has become a rarity, and its loss needs a new, tougher generation of conservationists.

Hartley Neita’s editorial in the Jamaica Gleaner (January 14, 2006) strikes the conservationists’ dissonant chord: one note of lamentation and three of alarm.

Neita writes that