Posts

Visiting Botanical Gardens The first thing you want to do in preparing for your botanical garden experience is to dress comfortably. So just what should you wear when visiting a botanical garden? Your attire should be comfortable and appropriate for the season – many botanical gardens are open year-round. Wear comfortable, low-heeled shoes for walking or hiking. Expect that your shoes will get dusty or dirty. Bring a sun hat or visor to protect your face from the sun....

Gingko trees are deciduous, hardy shade trees with unique, fan-shaped leaves which are linked to a primitive family of trees commonly found 160 million years ago in China. Considered to be the world’s oldest living species of tree, geological evidence of ginkgos have been dated to the Mesozoic era, some 200 million years ago! Ginkgo trees are planted around temple sites in Japan and considered to be sacred. These trees produce an herbal product popular around the world, most specifically in Asian cultures....

Grass and Crows Before we discuss how to manage crow damage to lawns it is a good idea to know why the crows are attracted to the grass. The likely answer of course is to get at some delicious bugs. In the case of crows digging in grass, they are looking for the chafer beetle, an invasive pest imported from Europe. The chafer beetle’s life cycle is around a year during which time nine months are spent as grubs feeding on your lawn....

Gardeners are enhancing their grass lawns with spring flowering bulbs for practical reasons, too: flower bulbs are prolific “naturalizers.” What does naturalizing mean? It means your bulb lawn will effortlessly and quickly multiply, filling your yard with lovely blooms year after year. A naturalizing bulb lawn can also work perfectly in shrub borders, under deciduous trees and in perennial borders. In addition to its beauty, a spring bulb lawn delivers some other immensely important benefits....

How To Get Rid Of Squash Bugs With Plants The three sisters is a popular companion planting whereby corn, beans and squash are grown together for the mutual advantages each provides. One such benefit is a reduction in the number of cucurbit pests found on the squash sister. It’s believed the variety of foliage types in a companion planting confuses insect pests and makes it harder for them to locate their host plants....

Why You Should Be Growing Dandelion Greens While dandelions can be a nuisance in the lawn, they are also a surprising source of nutrients. Dandelion greens contain vitamin C, potassium, calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, thiamin, riboflavin, beta carotene, and fiber. They are actually more nutritious than most of the fruits and vegetables you can buy in the grocery store. It is also touted as being beneficial to your liver, kidneys, blood, and digestion....

Can You Plant Store-Bought Pepper Seeds? Can you plant store-bought pepper seeds, and will they grow into the type of pepper you want depends upon several factors: Is the pepper a hybrid? Store-bought bell pepper seeds from hybrid varieties of peppers don’t have the same genetic make-up as the parent pepper. Therefore, they rarely grow true to type. Was the pepper self-pollinated? While pepper flowers often pollinate themselves, the possibility of cross-pollination exists....

Seed Propagating Windmill Palms Every palm tree is different and their propagation methods and chances of success outside their native range will vary as well. Windmill palm propagation requires a male and a female plant to produce viable seeds. Short of lifting the plant’s skirts, it can be difficult to identify the plant’s gender without a professional. However, once blooming commences, the problem becomes more clear. Males develop huge yellow sweeping flower clusters that do not fruit, and females have smaller, greenish blooms that will develop into fruit....

When to Harvest Vegetables Timing for harvesting vegetables is primarily dictated by the length of time they have been growing. This information is found on seed packets, but there are other indications of when to harvest vegetables as well. Veggies continue to improve or degrade after they are picked. When they are mature at harvest, their life process needs to be slowed by chilling, while immature produce like green tomatoes need to have that process sped up by storing at room temperature....

Sure, you can buy fresh herbs for marinades at the grocers, but growing them yourself puts them quickly at your fingertips, and for a fraction of the cost since fresh herbs for meat and veggie dishes can be used throughout the growing season. About Herbs for Grilling Many people use a dry rub on their meats to flavor them when grilling. In a pinch, this imparts great flavor, but using fresh herbs for marinades and in a fresh herb dry rub really packs a punch....

Here are a few of our favorite indoor houseplant tools. Tools For Indoor Plants: Essential Houseplant Tools When it comes to houseplant gardening tools, a small hand trowel is definitely at the top of the list. A trowel is handy for digging, and for moving small amounts of potting mix from one place to another. A scoop is much like a hand trowel, but the larger size allows you to scoop more material....

When to Harvest Hazelnuts Hazelnuts, also known as filberts, thrive in regions of mild, moist winters combined with cool summers. Hazelnuts produce nuts when they are around 4 years of age but don’t really become productive until they are closer to 7 years of age. Clusters of blossoms appear in the late winter to early spring between February and March. Once the flowers are pollinated, nuts begin to form. Over the course of the summer months, the nuts continue to mature leading up to the harvesting of hazelnuts in October....

If your plant has lost all of its leaves or the leaves have all gone brown, don’t panic. If you suspect your plant is dead but you aren’t sure, the fastest way to tell if it is dead is to check the stems. The stems of the plant should be pliable and firm and will have a green cast on the inside if they are still alive. If the stem is mushy or brittle, check the roots for the same conditions....

Japanese Maple Grafting Most Japanese maples sold commercially have been grafted. Grafting is a very old method of reproducing plants, especially those that are difficult to grow from seed and cuttings. Japanese maples fall into this category. Growing Japanese maple cultivars from seed is difficult since the tree’s flowers openly pollinate, this means that they accept pollen from most other maples in the area. Given this, you can never be certain that the resulting seedling will have the same looks and qualities as the desired cultivar....

About Nightshade Weeds The nightshade family has many members, all having toxic properties. While some nightshade plants include those in which we commonly cultivate in gardens, like tomatoes and potatoes, it’s the weedy, creeping varieties that are most likely to cause issues in the landscape. Some of the more common of these nightshade weeds include: Climbing nightshade (Solanum dulcamara), or bittersweet, is a trailing/climbing perennial with bluish purple flowers and bright red berries....

You can propagate crepe myrtle trees as well, for planting crepe myrtles in your landscape or giving them to others. Let’s look at how to grow crepe myrtle from seed, how to start crepe myrtles from roots or crepe myrtle propagation by cuttings. How to Grow Crepe Myrtle from Seed Once flowering ceases, crepe myrtles produce pea-sized berries. These berries eventually become seedpods. Once brown, these seedpods split open, resembling small flowers....

About Poinsettias The poinsettia we know as a holiday plant is actually a shrub or small tree in its native Mexico and Central America. It grows 10 to 15 feet tall (3.0 to 4.6 m.) as a deciduous or semi-evergreen plant on mid-elevation slopes along the Pacific Ocean. Its native habitat is tropical and seasonally wet. What many people describe as the poinsettia flowers, that showy red part, are actually bracts....

What is Collar Rot? Collar rot is a fungal disease that begins at the tree union. Over time, the fungus will girdle the trunk, which prevents important nutrients and water from moving into the vascular system of the plant. The causal agent is a water mold named Phytophthora. Treating collar rot starts with creating a well-drained planting site and watching young trees carefully for any signs of disease. It seems there are endless diseases that can infest our plants....

Corpse Flower Facts A little bit of background will help determine the care of these unusual plants. Corpse flower is an aroid that is native to the jungles of Sumatra. It will take about 8-10 years before it actually blooms. But what a show when it does! The inflorescence can grow up to 10 feet (3 m.) tall. Although the inflorescence is very large, the flowers are much smaller and found deep inside the base of the spadix....

Epiphyte Mounting Tips There are 22,000 species of epiphytes around the world. Many of these are becoming common houseplants due to their unique beauty but also their ease of care. Mounting these plants is the best way to view them, provides the plant the aerial situation it requires and assists in epiphyte plant care. Choose any mount that is porous and is free of chemicals and salts. Now it is time to take a few epiphyte mounting tips and get creative....