Archives

In the Beginning A grande dame, an old beech and other memory-keepers on the path to this gardener’s genesis By Jim Dodson Fifteen years ago, a grande dame of English gardening named Mirabel [...]

Unexpected September And the art of rolling with the punches By Jim Dodson Not long ago, my daughter took a new job and moved with her fiancé from New York City to Los Angeles, or as I try not to [...]

September breaks you open with her golden hours, her wildflowers, her long, sweet kiss of transience. She is absolute radiance. Summer in her loveliest form. And one day, out of nowhere, she [...]

The Write Stuff What makes memorable writing work? By Stephen E. Smith “These are the times that try men’s souls.” “The world will little note nor long remember . . .” “A date which will live in [...]

Portrait of “Little Thunder” Sue Monk Kidd imagines the wife of Jesus By D.G. Martin “It could have happened.” My friend was talking about The Book of Longings, the latest novel from Sue Monk [...]

By Ash Alder Always, always everything at once, and in August you can see it. Blackberry and bramble. Rose and thorn.  Honey and hive. The sweetness and the sting. You cannot have one without the [...]

USCGC Diligence departs Wilmington By John Wolfe   •   Photographs by Andrew Sherman It’s a cool gray Memorial Day morning, and the tide is nearly full beneath the big white ship moored at the [...]

In the Sweet By and By Until then, the dance of life continues By Jim Dodson The Great Pandemic Summer of 2020 is drawing to a close. How have you coped? As you read this, I am coping by being [...]

Weeks ago, before what felt like endless days of rain, two flats of tomato plants mysteriously landed on your porch (how’d they get there?), and so you planted them deep in the sunniest patches [...]

Going Viral Shedding light on dark days By Stephen E. Smith In the mid-’s, Richard Preston’s nonfiction The Hot Zone was a bestseller. Based on a 1989 outbreak of an Ebola-like strain of virus in [...]