I've lectured and written for years about what the garden teaches -- life lessons that lately I call its parables. The garden, and especially the greater backdrop of nature, is my companion, and also my spiritual guide. This week halfway across the country it offered grim exclamation points to its most powerful teachings: that nothing lasts, and that nobody knows for certain what's coming even one tiny moment into the future.  

Locally the lesson simply came in the form of crazy hail (video above). What it taught me (and what's on tap next Saturday June 1 for my hastily revamped but action-packed Garden Conservancy Open Day). All right here. 

crow or raven? a who's who on 2 crafty birds

Perhaps no birds are more familiar than crows and ravens -- but which is which in these similar-looking members of the genus Corvus? And who's smarter? Ellen Blackstone of the popular BirdNote public-radio show is our guide again in this latest installment in our collaborative series. And watch out, there's a crow-or-raven quiz at the end of the story! Read it now. 

missed them last issue? 

• growing hellebores and shade natives, with Barry Glick
• r.i.p., my yellow magnolia (a botanical whodunit)