Paths converge at the Miyazaki Japanese Garden in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Spring whiteout in Washington, D.C., highlights cherry tree contrast.

Flowers and foliage get plenty of glory. What about soil? Where’s the spotlight on the underground? It’s difficult to illuminate what’s out of sight. Sometimes a heavy price gets paid for inattention — today and yesterday. In Larding the Lean Earth: Soil and Society in Nineteenth-Century America, Yale University history professor Steven Stoll highlights the…

With snow flying from Florida to Maine, as the calendar turned to 2018, what a comfort it’s been …

It’s mid-October and the nearly 15-foot tree, neatly draped in black netting, is laden. Vanessa Colbert pulls open a section of the bird screening to offer a clearer view of the ripening figs, squat globes set in a deep maze of dark green, lobed leaves. The tree has come a long way since Colbert planted…