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Symbolism of cemetery plants: How flowers, trees and other botanical motifs honor those buried beneath

THE CONVERSATION — If you visit a cemetery, look closely and you’ll likely notice many flowering plants — adorning the graves, or maybe even carved into headstones. As a horticulture Extension specialist and frequent geocacher, I often visit cemeteries in urban and rural areas across the country. The plants seen in cemeteries vary by climate as well as local history and culture. They are planted with purpose, often serving as symbols for the physical and spiritual realms. Early rural cemeteries In the early 1800s, cemeteries in the United States started separating from ...

The flowers of fall

Traveling around Clinton County in mid-October, I noticed a few homes had potted chrysanthemums alongside pumpkins on their porches, but for the most part, the gardens I saw had finished flowering for the year, leaving little color except for the changing autumn leaves. For gardeners who ...

From errant birdseed to mint mishaps, gardening can be as scary as any Halloween night

There may be a 20-foot-tall skeleton on your next-door neighbor’s lawn and zombies in the yard across the street, but the real horrors often lie in unmarked graves in the gardens of those you least suspect — maybe even your own. I’ll be the first to admit there have been a few frights in my garden over the years, starting with the English ivy and pea-gravel mulch I inherited when I moved into the house and ending with the mint I foolishly planted directly in the ground many years ago, when I didn’t realize it would still be around to haunt me today. Did I say “ending ...

Transplanting shrubs: Timing and technique for a thriving garden

It’s the end of the gardening season, and those of us who’ve endured a less-than-perfect layout may be itching to move shrubs around. But proper timing is imperative. I inadvertently planted a Clethra bush too close to a peach tree, and their intertwining branches have been taunting ...

How to cook, freeze or pickle plant scraps instead of throwing them away

My beets were slow to grow this year, so I bought a bunch at the farmers’ market. I was taken aback when the seller chopped off the vegetable’s foliage and attempted to discard it after handing me a sad sack of leafless roots. “Wait! I’ll take those, please,” I blurted, catching ...