Steve Silk

Container Clusters

As a dedicated container gardener, my approach to gardening in pots is always evolving.  I wrote about my thriller, filler and spiller recipe last season, and while I’m sticking with that basic approach, I find myself more inclined to create those kinds of combinations by using a grouping comprised of individual plants in their own[...]

Rhymes With Orange

Last month I started my seasonal orange bender. It being the color of all kinds of wonderful things, from mangoes to sunsets to campfire embers. I can’t get enough of it–in the garden or elsewhere.  So I shared some of my favorite flowers and promised a return to the topic with a post on good[...]

Got Rocks?

I’ve got one of those gardens where digging a five-gallon hole means removing ten gallons of rocks. I can’t sink a spade without hearing the clang of steel against stone. Gardening for me is sometimes more like mining. But I’ve come to an accommodation with stone. I had to. If I couldn’t find a way[...]

Deeper Into Orange

Okay, I know, I know. You either love orange or you hate it. It’s hard to be indifferent to a color as rollicking as this one.  In case you were wondering, yes, the color orange takes its name from the fruit. The moniker comes from a sanskrit word, naranja, which is what the fruit was called in South[...]

Punctuating The Garden

Hah! I bet you thought I’d be posting about exclamation points! Exciting stuff! Focal points! But no, today I shall focus on the lowly, misunderstood, but oh-so invaluable comma. Let’s think for a moment about its role. According to Wikipedia, “the comma is used in many contexts and languages, principally for separating things.” So what exactly[...]