The Perennial Plant Association has chosen blue false indigo, Baptisia australis, as its 2010 perennial plant of the year. Other common names for the plant are wild indigo, baptisia, indigo weed, rattleweed and rattlebrush. The Perennial Plant Association describes the plant as follows: “Newly emerging shoots produce violet-blue, lupine-like flowers in erect 10- [Continue]
One out of every three bites of food we eat is provided through the work of animal and insect pollinators. The mysterious colony collapse disorder among commercial honeybees, disease and loss of habitat have severely affected pollinators that sustain our food crops and quality of life. Other insects besides bees act as important [Continue]
My vegetable garden is a large rectangle running east–west along the northern boundary of our property. Over the years, the open field north of our fence has grown up into a wooded area. In mid-summer, even though the woods is north of the garden, it casts quite a bit of shade. The garden once [Continue]
Annual flowers bloom, set seed and die in one growing season. Perennial flowers live three, five or even thirty years. At first glance, it would seem that perennial plants are the way to go to save both the time of replanting each year and the money spent every year to purchase annuals. There is [Continue]
Spring is the best time for transplanting or dividing most plants but there are some that should be transplanted later in the growing season. Irises are transplanted or divided as soon as they finish flowering. Cut the flower stems off and cut the leaves back to 4-6 inches with a scissors, leaving a [Continue]
Annual flowers bloom, set seed and die in one growing season. Perennial flowers live three, five or even thirty years. At first glance, it would seem that perennial plants are the way to go to save both the time of replanting each year and the money spent every year to purchase annuals. There [Continue]
The Perennial Plant Association has named Hakonechloa macra ‘Aureola’ (golden hakone grass) its perennial plant of the year for 2009. It derives its name from “hakone” a region of Japan, and “chloa” the Greek word for grass. The Perennial Plant Association describes their choice: “Golden hakone grows 12-18 inches tall and 18-24 inches [Continue]
You may be ready to hang up your gardening tools for the year, but there is one more task to complete yet this year if you want a beautiful early spring garden. Mid-October is bulb-planting time. Flowers like tulips, daffodils, crocuses, muscari, hyacinths, alliums and scilla all grow from bulbs. They can be [Continue]
Its name is rather off-putting for someone who wants to grow a nice plant, but dead nettle is a pretty solution for the oft-asked question, “What can I grow under my trees in the shade where grass won’t grow?” Nettle implies something prickly or spiny, and dead, well dead implies dead. Dead nettle [Continue]
It’s hard to have missed the news articles over the past several years on the many health benefits of flaxseed oil. The omega-3 fatty acids in flaxseed oil help lower cholesterol and blood pressure. Other parts of the plant are also useful – the fibers are used to make linen cloth, high quality paper [Continue]