Spring 2015

Thank you, Pat, for having a dream and fulfilling it. The stories in GREENPRINTS remind me of a sunny day last July when I was drawn to my kitchen window by a pink flower I spotted growing in the middle of the front yard.  READ MORE

Donna Hicks: “I have been writing for over 20 years on a wide variety of topics. I also enjoy gardening and humor. (True, my gardening some-times provides the humor.)”

Kerry Seymour: From Reno, NV: “A retired Cooperative Extension nutrition specialist and Master Gardener, I am a staunch promoter of the joys (despite the challenges) of gardening in the high desert.”  READ MORE

“Who would therefore look dangerously up at Planets, that might safely looke downe at Plantes?” asked John Gerard in his famous Herball of 1597.  READ MORE

As a parent of five children, I have become accustomed to settling arguments. Teaching Carla (13), Michelle (12), Christopher (10), Shawn (8), and Norma (5) how to work out disputes has been an ongoing battle.  READ MORE

My Aunt Irene was not a gardener. Oh, she’d wander outside occasionally, but not to see the garden. She did it to get a moment to herself.  READ MORE

It was a lovely spring day here in the always moist and verdant Willamette Valley of Western Oregon, where gardening year-round is possible, if not mandatory, for someone with compost in her soul.  READ MORE

Since I was old enough to remember, I wanted to have a farm, not 160 acres of corn, but a New England type, family farm—fruit trees, a berry patch, chickens, vegetable gardens, maybe a cow, bees, a greenhouse, a few pigs.  READ MORE

My eyes were barely open as I sipped my first cup of coffee. Mmmmm, breathe. Again. Mmmmm, breathe. Again. Mmmmm…As soon as my brain circuits reconnected, I began planning my day. I am a list maker. The List is usually way too long.  READ MORE

I had the Zoloft. I needed to take it. But I was just standing in my kitchen, staring out the back door at my garden—looking at it but not really seeing it. How could this pill be strong enough to pull me out of this hole I couldn’t get out of on my own?  READ MORE

It has been a quiet week in Lake Woebegon. It was cloudy most of the week, and a cold wind blew in off the lake and picked up some dust off the street and blew it right in your face.  READ MORE

I bought two flats of ice plant today. Ice plant was a sensible choice. Extremely drought-and salt-tolerant, it thrives in the poorest soil, forming a ground-hugging mat of succulent foliage covered with fringed flowers.  READ MORE

The first spirit to appear had a skirt so wide it had to leave the room to change its mind. “I remember you,” I said. “You’re the ‘Christmas tree’ I cleverly planned out many Christmaseseseses ago!  READ MORE

On a cold day in February, not so long ago, my daughter nudged me in the grocery store and pointed her gloved fingers at the profusion of color brightening up an otherwise quiet corner stocked with root vegetables and canned soup.  READ MORE

We feast this day the death of death,” we chant as the tractor chugs down the driveway. We are beginning Lauds of Easter Saturday, the seventh day of the Octave dedicated to celebrating Easter joy.  READ MORE

It all started with my noticing puckered, corrugated leaves on my river birch. It is still a young tree and susceptible to the ravages of critters and disease.  READ MORE

Think about this much and it’s a downright creepy question. I mean, consider what we do to plants. We prune them, mow them, cage them, tie them to poles and fences, pick parts of them and eat them, and uproot them and toss them on the compost pile.  READ MORE

Just try answering this stumper: “What does your dad do?” “Um…well, he kinda…he works from home…and he publishes this magazine…no, you probably haven’t heard of it…it’s all garden stories…No, not like that.  READ MORE

Let us give thanks for a bounty of people. For children who are our second planting, and though they grow like weeds and the wind too soon blows them away, may they forgive us our cultivation and fondly remember where their roots are.  READ MORE