I hate to admit that I completely forgot about my dahlia tubers until early July of this summer. They were stored in the cold room in the basement and, by that time, the new shoots had pushed the taped lids of their cardboard boxes open. Usually, however, even dahlias that are planted right after the last spring frost here in Zone 5 don't have time to do much blooming before the first autumn frost. Read More
As luck would have it, the bug that does the most damage to my garden is also one of the hardest to kill. The four-lined plant bug (Poecilocapsus lineatus) is especially fond of members of the mint family, and shows up most heavily on my lemon balm and spearmint plants. Read More
This is probably the wrong year to talk about providing water for the birds here in Pennsylvania, since they can find plenty of it in puddles following our recent deluge! In more normal summers, however, our weather often begins to turn hot and dry in July. Read More
Although rehmannia or Chinese foxglove is virtually unknown to U.S. gardeners, it ranks among the top 50 in China-of medicinal herbs, that is! Rehmannia glutinosa, also known as "earth yellow," is the type used for that purpose. Its furry leaves and flowers remind me of gesneriads such as gloxinia. Read More
Although often considered southern belles, spring starflowers (Ipheion or Tristagma spp.) can shine as far north as zone 5. Since that is my own zone, I planted a few bulbs at the front of a flower bed last fall, covering them with an upside-down daisy tray (a flat with a webbed bottom) to prevent our chickens from scratching them up again. Read More
A cousin stopped by in mid-July to give me a very generous amount of Aztec liliy and Peruvian daffodil bulbs she hadn't gotten around to planting earlier in the summer, due to the death of her mother. Despite it being so late, I was highly optimistic about those bulbs, because I knew from previous experience that they bloom very rapidly. Read More
Sparmannia africana, also known as cape stock rose, is one of those plants that bristles when touched. Actually, only the showy stamens of the flowers move, expanding when something brushes against them. But, if you grow the cape stock rose as a houseplant, it could cause your guests to jump back and squeal, "It's alive!" Read More
These three substances sound nasty and the latter two somewhat chemical. They are all natural, however--as well as inexpensive--and can do wonders for your seed germination rates. Read More
My nodding scadoxus (Scadoxus nutans) bloomed for the first time recently, looking like a somewhat bent orange shaving brush. The poor thing was quite pot bound at the time. However, in its homeland of Ethiopia, it grows on trees and rocks in mountain forests, so it probably isn't picky about how much soil it does or doesn't have. Read More
Being an insatiable flower fiend, I traded for salsify seeds because I liked photos I'd seen of the purple blooms. I was disappointed to discover that they don't appear until the plant's second year, making it officially a biennial, though you can harvest the roots after its first summer. Read More
Although we all welcome the arrival of spring, the new season can bring new sneezin' as well--and not just from allergies! Change stresses our bodies, making us more vulnerable to viruses, especially if we try to hurry our winter-sluggish bags of bones into sudden gardening activity. That's when the herbs called adaptogens reportedly come in handy. Read More
In Herbaceous Perennial Plants, Allan Armitage writes that "Roscoea belongs in the almost-impossible-to-grow-but-I-must-have-one' group of plants, such as Meconopsis." Roscoea comes, in fact, from the same part of the world that the blue poppy does-the Himalayas. Read More
Rock roses aren't actually roses, as is proved by the fact that they lack thorns and require very little water, pruning, or other care. And, being native to the Mediterranean, they actually prefer poor and gritty soils to good ones. Read More
Many plants which become popular healers are thorny ones--perhaps on the theory that if what tastes bad has to be good for you, what feels bad has to be good for you too! All of the following prickly types have been highly touted for medicinal purposes in recent years. I don't know whether or not they really work, and would avoid self-medicating with them until we learn more about their long-term effects. But they are the sort of plants which snag your attention! Read More
Do you remember the little leather change purses with snap clasps at the top that our grandmothers or great-aunts used to carry? The shape of calceolaria or pocketbook flowers reminds me of the semi-circular appearance of those pouches. Read More
True to the "pan" in its name, pandan is a culinary herb commonly added to southeast Asian cuisine. Also known as dwarf or fragrant screw pine, the plant reportedly has an earthy scent similar to hay, while the cooked leaves smell like caramel corn. The flavor has been described as akin to roasted breadfruit or hazelnut. Read More
I somehow ended up with two very similar-if not identical- types of nolana seeds this year, Nolana humifusa and Nolana humifusa "Little Bells." (That's what happens when you make out a seed order without checking what you've already traded for! ) I was happy to have both, actually, since the South American plants are not well known nor widely available in the U.S. The other species you are most likely to find here are Nolana paradoxa and its cultivars, such as 'Bluebird', 'Snowbird' and 'Cliffhanger'. Read More
It has been my experience that most shade perennials--such as bleeding hearts, lily of the valley, and columbines--bloom in spring. So I was delighted to come across the more unusual false anemone (Anemonopsis macrophylla), which can brighten those shadowy places from midsummer to early autumn instead. Read More
Medinilla is one of those plants so striking that smitten gardeners like me rush out and acquire one whether or not we actually have the conditions for growing it. In the wild, the most popular type -- showy medinilla (Medinilla magnifica) -- can grow to 8 feet with 1-foot leathery leaves and dangly pink flower clusters up to 18 inches long. Read More
Someone once told me that I couldn't have rose slugs because western Pennsylvania was too far north for them. I responded with a hollow laugh. Rose slugs are my second gardening nemesis, after the four-lined plant bug about which I wrote earlier. Read More
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