Growing Wild

In Philadelphia, Going Green or Growing Wild? | NYTimes.......her yard (almost 7,500 square feet) is forest and shrubs. She rarely waters, except her tiny vegetable patch, and a few shrubs during drought. Rainwater is funneled off the roof into the landscape....... To tame her forest, she found a gardener who understood that. Together they have coppiced, or pruned to four feet, the black cherry trees, creating a hedgelike thicket facing the street. Young oaks have been pruned to resemble open-branched shrubs.........She has ignored the don’t-plant-one-of-everything rule. (Designers are supposed to plant in sweeps and repetitions.)...........“This is like a Garden of Eden,”

Flower Trickery

 Jonathan Drori shows the extraordinary ways flowering plants -- over a quarter million species -- have evolved to attract insects to spread their pollen: growing 'landing-strips' to guide the insects in, shining in ultraviolet, building elaborate traps, and even mimicking other insects in heat. | Ted

New Potpourri

Potpourri is traditionally a mix of dried flowers, leaves, roots and seeds, with floral, citrus, herbal, wood or spice notes. A contemporary-minded potpourri might have basic counterpoints, rendered in fresh new ways—like a lightened, reinvented recipe.

The less likely your ingredients—and your garden is a seasonal trove of commercially unavailable items—the more likely your blends will be one of a kind  | WSJ Online