This month, a House and Greenhouse guest, Ruby Winston, tells her methods for growing cinerarias on a small scale—the way other home gardeners want to grow them. Ideal Temperature Requirements Ideally, these magnificent late-winter and spring-blooming plants need a nighttime temperature range of 45° to 50° degrees Fahrenheit. If other conditions are excellent, moisture in … Read more
Temperamental plants may challenge the gardener, but those that come up and flower every spring with cheerful determination assure even the amateur of the thrill of achievement. Surely among the most delightful of these dependable plants are the spring-flowering bulbs. Many of the smaller kinds set out this fall will provide intimate pictures from the … Read more
Today, the art of flower arrangement takes in a lot of territory; sometimes, it seems to me it includes everything but flowers. Compositions are built around figures or masks; each pod, cone, or leaf that can be dried is approved; shells are popular—oyster, conch, and coral—and with these, cork. I see cypress “knees,” wisteria and … Read more
Planning ahead is important in any type of gardening. In greenhouse gardening, it is doubly so because the non-producing areas— scarcely noticed outdoors—are as conspicuous as sore thumbs in red flannel. Several plants that are easily grown from seed may be started now to provide abundant color for winter. Ideal Showy Plants For Winter Cineraria, … Read more
You are undoubtedly familiar with the practice of using hay for mulching vegetables and other plants. But do you know that hay will prepare a garden or any area for planting? Hay can transform a piece of weedy field and turf into an area rich and ready for growing things without a struggle or even … Read more
Sometimes, it is the material you combine with your plants that makes pleasing garden pictures. The professional touch at flower shows last spring was the result of a careful combination of walls, fencing, paving, etc. with plants. The drifts of tulips and daffodils and the grouping of azaleas and rhododendrons were made more beautiful by … Read more
Plant nutrients do not have to be soluble in water in order to enter the roots of plants. This statement is contrary to the long-standing belief of plant scientists, but its truth has recently been demonstrated by Dr. F. L. Wynd and his associates at Michigan State College. Proof that undissolved nutrients can enter roots … Read more
It would be a strange situation if a gardener did not value most highly the first little spear of life that starts the spring show. Yet I have so long taken the snowdrops, crocus, and Siberian scillas for granted to be planted abundantly and thereafter left to their devices that I am not sure of … Read more
With home-freezing of foods steadily on the increase, fresh homegrown vegetables and fruits are still more important than ever before. Since the revival brought about by the recession, the continued interest in backyard vegetable and fruit growing owes at least part of its popularity to enthusiasm for home-freezing. Growing food for this purpose is no … Read more
Early in the growing season, while the plants are not yet in flower, the purple meadow rue (Thalictrum dasycarpum) may be mistaken for the wild Columbine. The two plants often grow in the same moist edges of meadows and timber tracts, and there is a superficial similarity in leaf shape and foliage color. Besides, both … Read more