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

Summer 2017 flitted by in the garden like a corsage carousel. I tried to catch it once a day. Off it flew, a magic act in a cloud of pixie dust. (The photos that follow were taken with a Nikon D50 and 18-55mm lens.)

“Quite honestly, the law should be: if it gets out of your property, then you are responsible legally and financially for removing it,” said bamboo enthusiast Anna Foleen. “If people would just pass that law, life would be a lot easier.”

A ribbon of community garden at Hardy Park in Washington, D.C., has steadily worked its way along the fences of the ball courts and play areas, as longtime neighborhood residents and newcomers pursue the will of their green thumbs. But community gardening can be a thorny proposition.

The blade of a J.D. Napier hoe is longer across the bottom than the top. The Kentucky blacksmith makes the hoes from old saw blades and coal mine roof bolts.