Several years ago I was given a clump or two of some tiny strawberries. The story about them went something like this: During World War II, a U.S. pilot was shot down over the French countryside. He hid in the woods for weeks, surviving on wild plants. This white strawberry was one of those plants…

Saying goodbye to January always feels like a step toward spring. The dawn is coming earlier, and today, in my garden, the squirrels were chasing each other madly around the trunks of the cedars. While there's still frost on the rooftops in the morning, my mind is drifting toward planting time. As a salute to…

After featuring real and marzipan mushrooms in my previous post, there was keen interest in my making of the marzipan fruits and vegetables for my son and daughter-in-law's wedding cake. Happy images are still swirling about my mind (the wedding was Saturday!), while the marzipan was mostly eaten up by admiring wedding guests. Here's a…

I wonder if it's because I was born in Seattle, where dahlias are to be found blooming ecstatically in nearly every garden, that I used to take them for granted? And, is it because they are extensively hybridized that they are often looked down upon, even, by the gardening elite? This morning I took a…