Garden Dilemmas, Delights & Discoveries, Ask Mary Stone, New Jersey Garden blog
Red barns and tall silos reflected in calm winter pond water create a peaceful rural landscape of symmetry, stillness, and quiet seasonal beauty.

Reflections in the Garden of Life

In winter’s stillness, reflections reveal what shadows alone cannot. From mirrored ponds to garden design and the quiet wisdom of roots beneath the soil, this post explores how nature teaches us about healing, self-awareness, and the promise of spring in the garden of life.
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A leafless Money Tree in a too small white pot.

Making Room for Growth

When a money tree becomes too tight in its pot, the remedy is simple: loosen what’s bound, refresh the soil, and give it room to grow. Sometimes the same is true in life. A struggling houseplant reminds us that renewal often begins by making space.
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fiddle-leaf fig

When Fiddle-Leaf Figs Turn Yellow

Yellow leaves aren’t always a crisis—they’re a conversation. In this week’s Garden Dilemmas, a fiddle-leaf fig’s distress leads to reflections on watering, patience, and tending both houseplants and tender hearts through life’s transitions.
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a blonde woman, Mary Stone, in sunglasses and a denim shirt hugging a three foot wide water oak trunk.

Hope in the Form of a Tree

When the New Jersey Tree Survey arrived in my mailbox, it stirred more than curiosity — it invited reflection. From fundraising letters to fallen hemlocks and thriving beeches, this story explores how trees quietly teach resilience, renewal, and hope.
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a silver dog bowl below a rain gutter filling with snowmelt

Harvesting Rainwater & Snowmelt Wisdom

As snow melts from the roof and rain fills a waiting bowl, nature offers its original gift to our houseplants. In this post, I explore why rainwater and snowmelt nourish soil more gently than tap water — and what water teaches us about patience, renewal, and trusting life’s rhythm.
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a milkweed seed with silky feathers

What We Release – What We Grow

Hello, fellow lovers of all things green. As we begin a new year, we tend to reflect on what no longer serves us and set intentions that grow in their own time. I’m writing this on a cold winter morning, shortly after a quick cross-country ski around the property. A light dusting of s
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the sun peering through a forest in the fall

What Nature and Gardens Taught Us

Hello, fellow lovers of all things green, Happy New Year! A new year feels like an ideal time to pause and reflect on the path we’ve walked together, noticing what has grown—not just in our gardens, but within us. Curiosity Over Fear: A Copperhead’s Lesson One story that stood o
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Jolee, a white dog wiht a black mask looking into a bucket of holly branches.

When the Garden Teaches Letting Go

Hello, fellow lovers of all things green. Decorating with What Remains I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was on a scavenger hunt to decorate window boxes and pots. Well, the holly branches chewed off Ellie’s memorial holly dried out amazingly fast, likely due to the buck’
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White pine branches layered in winter window box with holly and pinecones

Late-Fall Tasks into Décor

Hello fellow of all things green, Last week, I shared about the buck rub on Ellie’s memorial holly (link below) and how branches ended up strewn along the base of the tree. While rubbing, deer often chew on lower branches, then paw at the soil and urinate to mark their territory. I sa
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Ellie’s recovered memorial holly Jolee, a white dog wiht black ears.

Hope Unfolds in Holly’s Renewal

Hello, fellow lovers of all things green, You may remember the story of the replacement tree planted in memory of Miss Ellie Mae, my rescue before Jolee. The first tree, a ‘Baby Blue Eyes’ Blue Spruce, didn’t survive. Its roots were severely cut and crisscrossed—what’s known in the tr
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