Saxon Holt

American Trees

– Posted in: Garden Photography, Trees and Shrubs

This must be the season for trees here at Gardening Gone Wild. Some of you may still be raking up leaves (and composting on site, right?), like I do with my Tupelo leaves – my most dependable tree for fall colors.  Nyssa sylvatica is native to the East Coast but is a great garden tree almost [...]

Why I Love Light (and a Selfie Suggestion)

– Posted in: Garden Musings, Garden Photography, Succulents

Garden writer and photographer Bren Haas, when interviewing me about my career and books, asked if I’d had a mentor for my photography or painting. I told her, “Light is a great teacher. I become transfixed when I see sunlight glittering on leaves, shadow patterns, or some lovely translucence. I’m uncomfortable in the presence of ‘wrong’ light—i.e. a windowless [...]

The Truth About Trees

– Posted in: Garden Musings

I have always felt that too few folks take the time to understand the truth about trees. A lot of the time people ignore caring for their trees and just think they’ll be fine growing by themselves. They don’t understand that you must prune trees, make sure they’re getting enough nutrients and tree felling of [...]

How to Photograph Trees

– Posted in: Garden Photography, Trees and Shrubs

A recent visit to the Arnold Arboretum in Boston provided a glorious opportunity to photograph trees.  After all, the word “arbor” is Latin for tree and arboreta are collections of trees.  What better a place to go to work with my camera. I confess I was once uninterested in traditional arboretums because there tends to be little structure to [...]

Glass Flowers of Harvard

– Posted in: Garden Photography, Garden Travels

The Ware Collection of Blaschka Glass Models of Plants, popularly know as the Glass Flowers is in the Harvard Museum of Natural History, a fantastic, fantastic museum in Boston. The exhibit has recently been cleaned and refurbished and with new cases with crystal clear glass and organized by plant family to enhance it as a teaching tool [...]