Dame’s Rocket: Wandering Lady
She’s all over the place right now. Gorgeously attired in shades of white, rose-pink, lavender and purple. She wanders into gardens, meadows, landfills. She hitchhikes along roadways. She lines the pond, and the forest, and the parking lot at the mall. Dame’s Rocket is the name of this ubiquitous June beauty. The explanation for this odd name is complex. First of all, “rocket” is a very old name for the spicy, peppery-tasting plants in the mustard family (nothing to do with rockets of the twentieth century). Dame’s Rocket is one of many species in the Mustard family. (The yellow stuff we put...
Read MoreA Sea Change
I’ve blended my blog with my website (www.anitasanchez.com) so when you visit Unmowed.com you’ll be taken to anitasanchez.com.
Read MoreDandelion: Easy to Grow
All winter and spring I try and try to get plants to grow. I pamper cranky houseplants, sprinkle seeds into pots and encourage them to grow into seedlings. I cheer for each crocus that pokes up through the snow, celebrate each brave hint of green, the first blade of grass, the first violet… Then BAM. The end of May hits like a freight train, and now we have to spend the rest of the summer beating the plants back. Everyone’s out on their riding mowers, trying to get the lawn under control. With all this rain, the grass is growing so fast you can almost see it. The weeds are already eating the...
Read MoreRain, Rain!
Long ago, I used to work with a gentleman some of you may remember–a very gentle man, named Ray Falconer. He was a meteorologist, the weather guru on public radio, and he used to give the most amazingly detailed and enthusiastic weather reports I’ve ever heard. Rain, sun, cloudy, mild, hurricane, fog, hail, whatever–the guy just loved weather. If you bumped into him and casually remarked “Nice day,” you had to be prepared to listen to a twenty-minute dissertation on high pressure and warm fronts. Anyway, he once told me that in the course of his research he had looked over the statistics for...
Read MoreCelandine: Sweet Young Thing
One of the best things about writing a blog is that it gives you a reason to look at everything with new eyes.
Read MoreBee Balm: A Good Bet
I admit it. It’s an addiction. The first step is admitting it, right? Much as I love nature and wild things, I just can’t pass up a greenhouse. There’s something about all those plants, spread out in a wild crazy quilt of color. The sheer gorgeousness of the exotic blooms. This is Gade Farm on Route 20 in Guilderland. I park the car and walk inside, vowing not to buy one more plant. Usually, in twenty minutes I’m staggering back to my car loaded down with petunias or what-have-you. But this year I drifted away from the magenta and purple and scarlet of the annuals, and checked out the...
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