Plant Basics

Trees are magnificent plants that never stop growing. Everyone has wondered one time in their life, how old is that tree, it is so big. There a few ways to determine the age of a tree and are...

Restoring a damaged plant to health provides a challenge for even the most experienced gardeners. Outdoor plants can be damaged from cold, weather or bugs. Indoor plants can suffer damage from...

Crinums (Crinum sp.) have large trumpet-shaped flowers that are red, pink, rose or white. The plants, which are hardy in zones 8 to 11, bloom in the summer in the cooler zones and year round in...

Crimson clover is used as a cover crop, green manure, pollinator enhancement and forage crop for livestock. It is a short lived perennial, and can survive for two to four years, depending upon...

Hanging plants are great for enhancing design and sprucing up a room. According to Umd.edu, they can add a great visual element that is lacking in conventional flora. You may have seen different...

The lingonberry is a tough, easy to care for fruiting groundcover. They are perfect for areas of partial shade and acid soil, and are easy to grow and propagate.

Cane plants are also known as Massangeana cane, Fragrans cane, Dracaena cane or Arundinaria gigantean (giant cane). The Fragrans cane is variegated with yellow stripes. Fragrans occasionally...

Warm season grasses are those that mature and go to seed during the warm seasons of the year, i.e., summer into early fall. Two dominant grasses in tallgrass prairie are big bluestem and Indian...

Save money by harvesting seeds for next year. Give gifts of seed packets to gardeners, or trade them for other types of seeds. Take the right steps to gather good quality seeds, pack them...

You can preserve the harvest of your garden by drying items like fruits and flowers. Fruits are an ideal food to preserve because you can choose edibles that are not always in season and dehydrate...

There are over 50 varieties of Boston fern (Nephrolepis exaltata). Boston fern, also known as sword fern, comes in many different sizes and shapes. Some are small and compact, while others are...

Asparagus fern, also known as lace fern, emerald fern or sprengeri, is not a true fern, but rather a member of the lily family. The fern forms whitish green tubers that resemble tiny garlic...

Native staghorn ferns, also known as elk horn or antelope ferns, are epiphytic perennials or "air" plants found in many tropical climates around the world including the southern United States,...

Bamboo is a plant of the grass family and grows rapidly in certain outdoor locations. Short, curled bamboo is sold in small pots for placement indoors as lucky charms. Some people face problems...

It is important to treat houseplants and vines with proper care. Specific plants need specific things, depending on the species. To the layman, however, identifying houseplants and vines can seem...

Water hyacinths provide beautiful blooms, but also present many problems. The water hyacinth is fast-growing, which can quickly cause navigation issues for boats and other water vehicles. Because...

Daylilies (Hemerocallis) are popular perennial landscape plants. They provide their growers with near endless color combinations, stately landscape filler for bare spots and, for some types,...

Siberian iris, also known as the beardless iris, is a low-maintenance iris that grows 2 to 4 feet tall on tall, slender stalks. These beardless blooms have grass-like, blue-green foliage that may...

Angel wing, or cane, begonias are among the oldest and easiest grown types in the family. Although they grow in various sizes, all feature sturdy bamboo-like stems and bold, pointed angel...

Daylilies are popular landscape perennials. They range from short and compact to tall mounds of grass-like foliage. Their bloom colors include red, white, yellow, peach, purple, and nearly black...

The Stephanotis is a climbing vine that needs fertilization during the spring and late fall seasons to prosper. To promote flowering and to keep away scale and mealy bugs, fertilization is an...

Coral bells, better known as heuchera (HUE-ker-uh), have a neat mounding shape which makes them an excellent choice for the front of flower borders. Site coral bells where they will have...

Propagating plants from cuttings is a relaxing and fun hobby. Plants created by taking stem cuttings will grow true to their parent plants and usually have a better start on life than those grown...

Lucky bamboo is a member of the lily family that is often grown hydroponically in containers filled with stones and water. Although named after the bamboo family, it actually has no relation, thus...

Gardeners sell cuttings to generate extra income during the summer months. Plants easily propagated from cuttings keep expenses down and offer a steady supply of new cuttings each year. Most...

A plant stand can be constructed using various designs from the pedestal design with one leg, or a wooden plant stand that resembles a small table. Wooden plant stands can even be constructed as...

Jacobinia (technically, Justicia carnea) is also called Flamingo Plant or the Brazilian Plume Flower. A rapid-growing, shade-loving evergreen perennial, it originates from South America, but can...

All parts of the black walnut tree contain juglone, a substance that inhibits growth of or kills some plants, trees and shrubs. Once afflicted, a susceptible plant can't be saved and will continue...

New growth stems of bamboo, sometimes referred to as shoots, arise from the ground at the base of bamboo stems, or culms. As long as the shoot is undamaged and alive, cuttings or divisions with...

Ferns can be started either from spores or by division of an existing fern plant. Because spore propagation is slow and difficult and fern plants need to be divided every three to five years to...

The bald cypress has a life span of hundreds of years. It grows up to 150 feet in height and 12 feet wide. Its growth rate depends on the nutrient supply, water depth, availability of light and...

Mock orange is a large and beautiful perennial shrub. During the spring, it is covered with thousands of blooms that smell like orange blossoms. The flowers feed an entire array of beneficial...

Many ornamental plants can be propagated with stem cuttings. Many trailing plants, shrubs and even conifers root well with stem cuttings; most tree varieties present more of a challenge. There are...

Privet hedges are popular, fast growing landscaping shrubs. They are versatile and give the gardener the options to have perfectly manicured hedging, stately well-trimmed trees, fantastic...

Thuja trees are a beautiful evergreen addition to the landscape. They provide good windbreaks, shelter for wildlife and shade for people, as well as stately hedging when planted in rows. They are...

Philodendron are a type of plant native to tropical South America, and popular as an indoor or office plant because of their hardiness in low light conditions. Some varieties are climbing, like...

Layering is a simple method of propagating many different plants. To perform simple layering, pull a long stem towards the soil and cover it partially with soil until it roots. This method is very...

The key to reproducing a plant from a cutting, is to be sure the parent plant is healthy and youthful. The parent plant, or the plant where the cutting originates from, must be free from diseases...

Many people grow a garden. This can contain flowers, vegetables or sometimes both flowers and vegetables. When you are gardening, you want to be sure that your plants are going to grow. For...

Rosette-shaped succulents, agave plants have sharp-tipped wide leaves and a blue, green or gray color. Because they grow slowly, agave plants thrive in pots. They absorb water with their roots and...

Hardy bamboo is an exceptionally tough, fast-growing and easy plant to grow. It makes an excellent privacy screen. The harvested bamboo poles are strong and attractive, and can be used for light...

Sedum thrives in full sun but happily tolerates partial shade. It is drought resistant and grows well in poor, dry soil. It blooms each year with minimal care, growing at a stately, but never...

Pond gardening is a fun and different way to grow beautiful plants. Water gardening is fun because it combines the fun of the water with the art of traditional gardening. Thousands of pond plants...

Stevia is widely used as a natural, calorie-free sugar substitute. The stevia plant is a challenging herb to grow, though it has proven to adapt to a variety of environments. With proper planting...

Porcelain flower and wax plant are other names for the hoya plant, as noted on the University of Florida website. The hoya is a succulent plant and has lovely heart-shaped leaves. This plant will...

February Daphne is a deciduous shrub that grows 3 to 5 feet high and about 4 feet wide. Intensely fragrant, lilac to rosy purple flowers appear in groups of two to three on leafless stems in late...

If you have the gardening space, growing pumpkins can be very rewarding. Pumpkins are a large, versatile squash that can be used in many savory dishes, soups, puddings, sweets and baked goods. If...

Harvesting plant seeds is not only a way to save money on next year's garden or a way to continue your garden from one growing season to the next. Harvesting plant seeds has become an important...

Staghorn ferns are exotic and beautiful additions to any plant collection. You can use chemical fertilizers on them in moderation--you can also supplement their need for potassium by feeding them...

The staghorn fern is an exotic plant that can be planted in several different ways because of its epiphytic nature. An epiphytic plant is one that does not require soil to absorb nutrients, but...