Every year I plant something new that I’ve never grown before. This year, it is an herb called fenugreek. Fenugreek does triple duty – it is both a culinary and medicinal herb, and as a nitrogen-fixer, it improves the soil as well. It is thought that fenugreek was first cultivated in the [Continue]
Is it time to add a new tree to your landscape? There are many more considerations than “I’ve always wanted a maple tree.” Not to discourage you from planting a tree – it is a noble undertaking – but below is a list of items to consider before you start. Putting the right tree [Continue]
A plant native to eastern North America, Little Bluestem, Schizachyrium scoparium, and its cultivars have been named by the Perennial Plant Association as their Perennial Plant of the Year for 2022. Here is the description from the PPA: “Summer through fall, the slender leaves and stems of little bluestem are an ever-changing [Continue]
There are many places to find comprehensive lists of both native and invasive Wisconsin plants. Ideally, plants would stay put on their own lists and not cross over. However, every gardener knows that plants don’t always behave the way we hope and expect they will. Given the right conditions, once in a while some [Continue]
Most basic Master Gardener training classes include a section on botany. Here, we learn words to describe the parts of flowers like petal, pistil and stamen; tree parts including crown, branch union, spur and leader; leaf shapes like pinnate, palmate, elliptical and ovate; and other terms like bulb, corm, tuber and rhizome. I [Continue]