When unexpected visitors drop by to see your garden, do you ever wish they’d come last week when the phlox were at their height or next when the dahlias would be popping? Careful planning, perhaps even reorganizing your garden, will save you such dispiriting moments. The secret: develop a high point of interest, beginning with … Read more
Lovely garden, lovely house, flowers indoors and out, and rough, grimy hands! It just is not necessary. Still, you can’t be much of a gardener without getting your hands into grit, mud, insecticides, and thorns, not to mention cleaning compounds and paints, which have a way of mixing into garden chores. Not to mention the … Read more
A study of heredity in plants almost always begins with a look at the work of Gregory Mendel. With no knowledge of exactly how it happened within the plant, Mendel was able to reason out the inheritance mechanism by observing and keeping careful records of the behavior of garden peas. A review of some of … Read more
MAY 18 – First flowers opened on ‘Little Gem’ alyssum in bed bordering rear walk-30 clays after sowing. Plants have a height and spread of three inches. May 25 – First flowers opened on ‘Little Gem’ alyssum edging rear walk 30 days after planting. Plants have a height and spread of two inches. I would … Read more
Nature is tricky, all right – she always has something up her sleeve. She sends a pest to eradicate the plant you thought was in the best health, then works a sudden cure on the sickly one you had given up for lost. She plants one maverick in a batch of identical seedlings or one … Read more
Why is a grain of corn a fruit while a pea is a seed? Do these people who call a tomato a fruit know what they are talking about? If a sunflower “seed” is actually a fruit, why? Distinguishing Between Seed And Fruit This matter of what is a seed and what is a fruit … Read more
Have you ever kept a Christmas poinsettia, wondering what to do with the almost leafless stalks? The plant can be saved, and it will bloom another year. Toward the end of January water, it only about once a week, once every 2 weeks, then once every three weeks. Give it none at all during March, … Read more
In the course of expressing herself about how I have helped awaken a desire for “beautifying our surroundings at a small cost,” a Kentucky woman has written some nice things to me which, like any other endeavoring soul, I have been glad to read. She has opened up again in my mind the whole matter … Read more
What, to plants, is the meaning of shade? Have we ever asked ourselves why the sunflower loves the sun, the wood anemone the woods? Why is it that certain plants can be grown successfully in partial or even dense shade while others scarcely seem able to exist without abundant sunlight? The two plants cited have … Read more
Plants with variegated foliage offer unusual possibilities in a garden. They may be used to create dramatic effects and are particularly valuable in shade or where flowers are scarce. However, there should be a reason for using plants with variegated markings, whether for accents, for borders with green and white as the motive, for ground … Read more