The glorious summer blossoms of purple coneflower, Echinacea purpurea, lure many beneficial critters into the garden. Many species of bees, like native solitary bees, honeybees, and bumblebees visit them daily.
Read more →Orchids are surprisingly easy houseplants. This one is Laeliocattleya Irene Finney. It wants high light but not direct sun. Light from a south facing window filtered by sheer curtains is perfect.
Read more →Bird’s nest fern really is a fern but it doesn’t look like one. It’s a bold houseplant to two feet in diameter with bright green, strap-shaped, undivided fronds. The leaves radiate out from the center like the spokes of a wheel leaving the center open like the nest of a bird.
Read more →We’re teaching Master Gardener training classes all day today; basic botany all morning and plant identification all afternoon. Master gardeners rule!
Read more →When you find aphids on the leaves of your citrus houseplant treat them with a safe organic remedy like insecticidal soap. Don’t use poison inside your home; it’s not safe for you or your pets.
Read more →Arrowhead vine, Syngonium podophyllum, is another foolproof houseplant in the skunk cabbage family, the Araceae, a family that has more superb houseplants than any other. The photo shows the typical variety, the one most commonly seen. Newer cultivars have much more dramatically variegated foliage.
Read more →‘Lemon Lime’ is one of the newer houseplant cultivars of the old favorite Dracaena fragrans. Just as forgiving and easy as the original but with much more colorful leaves.
Read more →It’s mid-January and our hazel nut trees are in full bloom. The dangling catkins of male flowers glow bright yellow when lit up by sunbreaks. The tiny female flowers that will become the nuts are barely visible at this stage.
Read more →Even though dwarf banana is quite small, for a banana, it makes a pretty big houseplant to about 3 feet wide. It adds instant tropical ambiance to any decor and even produces tasty bananas given abundant sunlight and heat.
Read more →Peacock plants, Calathea species, are valued as houseplants for their intricately patterned variegated foliage. Give them ample fluoride-free water and high humidity and they’ll reward you handsomely.
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