NOT SO MANY years ago, relative to the history of horticulture, even a now-ubiquitous phrase like “pollinator plant” wasn’t part of our everyday gardening language and mindset the way it is today. Our collective consciousness about the importance of native plants has grown fast, and with it have come more new words for our vocabulary. One phrase that I’ve heard a lot lately i...

IF I SAY: quick, name a holiday flower, you might first answer poinsettia. But the poinsettia wasn’t always synonymous with this time of year, today’s guest tells me – like once upon a time more than a century ago the chrysanthemum took center floral stage from Thanksgiving to New Year’s, surprising as that might sound. Whether historic or cutting-edge modern, horticulturist ...

I CAN’T IMAGINE LIFE life without my admittedly oddball collection of houseplants, many of which have been with me for several decades already. So I was delighted recently to meet Rob Moffitt, whose Los Angeles-based botanical design studio (above) specializes in matching their clients with houseplants that are just the way I like them: Not just pretty, but possessing loads o...

WHEN I BOUGHT my place decades ago, it was nestled in a tiny piece of former farmland with a little 1880s house and no garden. There were, however, five giant apple trees, at least a century old even then – all overgrown, but still willing to bear fruit despite their age and years of neglect. I’m very attached to them, even though I still don’t know their names, which was why...

ONCE UPON A TIME, the seed catalogs came out around the start of the New Year, but these days the very first ones may arrive by Thanksgiving, and their listings may be posted online even earlier. So I guess what I am saying is: It’s not too early to start talking about seed shopping … and it’s never too early to start scouting out new seed sources that you might not know abou...