Author: Ruth Happel

Even by tempestuous mountain weather standards, this has been a wild month to close out the year. At the end of last week, temperatures dipped to zero, with a blustery wind chill of minus 25. This must be hard on wildlife, and to be honest is not my favorite walking weather. This week it ranged… Continue reading Toothwort’s Winter Leaves

At first glance, this looks like a Christmas tree with an unusual holiday decoration. But this eastern hemlock does not make a good holiday tree since it tends to lose its needles soon after it is cut. And the fluffy white balls are not ornaments but the hemlock woolly adelgid, an invasive species quickly leading… Continue reading Unwelcome Christmas Guests

Every year at this time the North American Rock Garden Society seed exchange list arrives, and I always pore over it way too long making a wish list of plants to populate my garden. Over the years I’ve found many treasures, an inexpensive way to try assorted plants in my many gardens. Earlier this week… Continue reading Exuberant Endangered Petunia

Though my garden has been pretty quiet lately, one of my Camellia shrubs is just beginning to bloom this week. Although the majority of my plants are native, my interest in camellias goes back to my first garden. I had no idea when I moved to central North Carolina in the early 1990’s that it… Continue reading December Blooms

In a forest full of bare branches, beech and oak trees are the exception, clinging to slowly tattering tan leaves. On windy days, their leaves blow back and forth like tiny banners. In this photograph these dry beech leaves clinging to branches hold on in a process known as marcescence, and the trees are called… Continue reading Marcescence

After five years since planting an assortment of milkweed seeds, they are ready this year to complete their life cycle. They were slow to germinate and then slow to settle in after transplanting the seedlings. Over the past week, the seed pods of my common milkweed slowly opened from a sliver to fully split. They… Continue reading Mystery of Milkweeds and Monarchs

My aunt, Ruth Smiley, spent over half a century helping shape the gardens and wild areas of Mohonk Mountain House in the Catskills of upstate New York. Though she spent much of her time on the formal gardens, she also enthusiastically explored the plant life of the surrounding woods and meadows. My family spent countless… Continue reading Rattlesnake Fern

Violets are one of the first flowers in my woods, a number of species emerging when it is still winter here. I have at least half a dozen species, flowering from late winter well into spring. Now all the forest violets are dormant, but for months now a small white violet has been flowering in… Continue reading Tenacious Violets

The American chestnut was once the dominant tree of forests in the eastern United States. There were around 4 billion trees, important to wildlife and also for lumber, preferred for its high-quality wood for everything from houses to railroad ties and telephone poles. They also provided seasonal chestnuts which were a treat for people. When… Continue reading Bringing Back Chestnut Trees

My aunt spent much of her life nurturing the gardens of Mohonk Mountain House in the Catskills of New York. She kept lists of plants for various display and wild gardens. Over the years she showed me around the gardens with pride, helping to initiate my own interest in gardening. On one of our many… Continue reading White-Tailed Deer