Spring 2023

Hi! I’m Bill Dugan, the new Editor and Publisher of GreenPrints Magazine. I’m thrilled to be working on this unique publication, because I have a lifetime interest in gardening and writing.  READ MORE

Liz Rasley: TX-based Liz writes on the intersection of life, motherhood, errant planting sessions, and, sometimes, laundry. Her work appeared in Issues 124 and 127. Stacy Hinz: “My flower garden is my private paradise,” says this WI gardener and writer. “My garden and I will always be a work in progress.” Sandi Fischer: Sandi didn’t…  READ MORE

The world is still full of so many wonders. I have to remind myself of this on days when watching the news makes my chest tighten. Liz, I chide myself, move. I do. I stand up, step outdoors—and spot courting blackbirds gleefully circling over the tops of my crepe myrtles. See? I tell myself, life is still full of miracles. Oh, how small these wonders often are. And how often they crop up where we least expect it.  READ MORE

We are just sitting down for a family dinner to celebrate Mother’s Day. My parents had six children, and we have all the families together for this special day. An appetizing meal awaits. Mom prepared a delicious brown-sugar ham, and each family brought a side dish to complement the meal. Almost unthinkingly, we avoid serious topics of conversation like work, schedules, and finances. Instead, we reminisce, sharing fond memories.  READ MORE

One Spring morning I was pulling weeds in the flower bed while Craig, my husband, mowed the lawn. I inhaled the sweet smell of freshly cut grass and took pleasure in the yellow daffodil blossoms trumpeting Spring’s unmistakable return to Indiana.  READ MORE

St. Patrick’s Day had come and gone, and my peas were in the ground. Still in the ground. Not a one had sprouted—and I’d planted them two weeks ago. That day, I’d first done the usual soil preparation with the help of my not-really-a-gardener husband, Michael.  READ MORE

What did you plant in your garden the year before last? Or the year before that? (And no peeking if you’re the sort of well-organized gardener who keeps notes.) Human memory—packaged between our ears in an organ not much bigger than a grapefruit—is enormous. Scientists calculate that the average human brain can store somewhere around 2.5 quadrillion bytes of information—that is, over 100 times the amount of info contained in the entire Library of Congress.  READ MORE

I always tell people that if they want to really show off their garden to plan to do so in the month of June (that’s still Spring, isn’t it?). Certainly not now: The weather’s been dreary since we dropped into the twenties (the cold ones, not the roaring ones) the first week of November, which is not officially ‘the cruelest month,’ but it might as well be, since it’s only going to get darker and colder for another six weeks before the Winter Solstice lures you into a false sense of imminent escape.  READ MORE

Beets, radishes, and spinach are easy to grow in colder or milder climes. Their seeds are among the first that can be directly planted into the garden bed in early Spring. These seeds will survive colder temperatures and a little frost. Unlike other root vegetables with tiny seeds, the beets, radishes, and spinach are the champions of early Spring, and their seeds are big enough to space easily. Carrot, onion, and leek seeds are planted at a lesser depth, and thus need to wait until things warm up.  READ MORE

My wife, Carole, looked behind the shed and was appalled. “George,” she called sternly. “Will you come here for a minute?” I was sweeping the front porch when I heard her. “Just look at this mess! There are old pots and seed trays everywhere.  READ MORE

I grew up in southwest Ohio, the second of seven children. Our family’s vegetable garden covered over an acre. In early March my dad would purchase Kennebec seed potatoes.  READ MORE

As soon as the fist-sized, orange blossom revealed its beautiful face and reached towards the late-Spring sky, I knew I had made it.  READ MORE

Again, an intrusion of aphids has found its way to the bridal wreath bush in my Maryland garden. The assailants have slowly drained the graceful shrub of its vitality. Year after year I’ve watched passively, hoping the natural order of things would mitigate the problem. Not this year. This is the year I will fight back!  READ MORE

As a child, I lived next door to my grandmother, so I came to know her pretty well. She loved her flowers. She had flowerbeds around her house. There were rows and rows of irises. And beautiful peonies lined her driveway all the way to the road.  READ MORE

I’ve often wondered how my father developed his gardening expertise. Born and raised in the East End of London, Cyril was a true Cockney and was surely more familiar with digging an Anderson Shelter to escape the bombs of World War II than planting roses. And yet, when he and his young family moved to the rural outskirts of London, he began gardening—and never stopped.  READ MORE

Over the years, I’ve come to appreciate the seasons in Upstate New York: Summers full of warmth and sunlight, punctuated by the crashing of epic thunderstorms off Great Lake Ontario; Autumns spent crunching through red and gold leaves, savoring the tang of apples on the tongue and the smell of campfires in the breeze; Winter evenings enjoyed under a plaid blanket by the woodstove, curled up with a good book and a cup of steaming cocoa; and Spring days with the sight of crocuses, the song of an early robin, and seeds to plant.  READ MORE

In the 1950s, Hudson, New York had two large cement plants that employed hundreds of men. It was a dirty job but paid a livable wage. My father was employed at one of the plants. The smokestacks from the kilns, each at least 100-feet tall, sent cement dust far and wide. As a child, I thought little about pollution—I’d never even heard the word. But we lived with it every day. All around Hudson, sticky cement dust fell with the early morning dew. Local farmers joked, “One thing for sure, we never have to lime our fields!” In town, it settled on cars parked in the streets. Porches, sidewalks, and outside stairs were heavily dusted with the gray, clinging dust—especially in the Summer months, when the humidity made it stick to everything.  READ MORE

Gardeners always groan but children grin—when their parents aren’t looking—as they make wishes and blow seed heads in the wind. My dear mother hated dandelions in our yard, prodding and poking them with a fork-like tool before spraying weed killer to end their—well, her—misery. It wasn’t long after she was laid to rest in 1994 that I visited her grave and spotted one lonely dandelion rising in the center of her grave.  READ MORE