Month: April 2022

Every year around this time, the native dwarf crested iris bloom in my woods. They are most prolific on my steep rocky hill, though also flowering in a few other spots scattered through the forest. In my garden, I am enjoying the flowers of Iris cristata ‘Montrose White’, a domestic variety. It is an elegantly… Continue reading Montrose Memories

This week is the culmination of a long wait. Finally, a pinkshell azalea is flowering in my garden. I grew a couple in my first garden in the early 1990s. They grew but never flowered in the five years I was there. I hadn’t tried again in my assorted gardens until last spring. When my… Continue reading Memorial Flower

When I was growing up in suburban New York, my dad seemed especially fond of dogwoods. Though we didn’t have any growing wild on our small lot, he added two of the white native trees and a pink cultivar. This dominated the view out my bedroom window, and their profusion of flowers in spring always… Continue reading Dogwood Winter

I first became familiar with foamflowers as part of a nature trail my dad maintained in Lake Placid. My mom played in the Sinfonietta there every summer for over 50 years, and when I was a teenager, they bought an old house with a couple acres of mostly woods. As a professor, my dad had… Continue reading Foamflowers

Trilliums are among the gaudiest flowers in Tennessee forests. With around 50 species ranging from the western US to Asia, the highest diversity is in the southern Appalachians. One of the most recent discoveries was Trillium tennesseense right here in east Tennessee. It was found less than 10 years ago, in a park I hiked… Continue reading The Cutest Trillium