What began as a garden tune-up for a dear client became a wrestling match with Spiderwort—and a lesson about purpose, resilience, and life's winding paths. Our conversation and a song about a crooked tree revealed that what seems out of place today may have a purpose we cannot yet see

While revising her book proposal inspired by The Lesson of the Leaf, Mary Stone discovers an unexpected truth woven through years of writing, gardening, and observing nature. The deepest lesson may not be about healing loneliness and loss—but about remembering that we belong.

A quiet walk in the rainy late-winter woods becomes a meditation on healing, March folklore, and the promise that storms eventually give way to new growth.

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.

Hello, fellow lovers of all things green. Recent rains washed away the late-fall trifecta of snow that had so festively decorated our world. It felt curious to have snow arrive ahead of schedule, but everything has its season. And sometimes, seasons come early. Now winter has official

Hello, fellow readers, There is wisdom in the rhythm of the water. Water is everywhere, including as vapor in our atmosphere and the cells of all living things. During a deep freeze like the one we recently enjoyed, some say endured, ice crystals decorated our storm windows like etchi

This photo, entitled ‘Hope’, was used as a holiday greeting to cherished colleagues and clients this year. But when I took the photo, only a few weeks after my beloved brother Bill’s passing, I didn’t think of the scene as Hope. True, the beauty of the long sha