home sectionhome section
Using plants to define a garden bed softens the transition between the garden and pathways, lawns and patios. A smart choice for Mediterranean gardens is dwarf rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis "Prostratus"). Dwarf rosemary grows in U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 8 through 10. Grow dwarf rosemary as an edging plant around herb gardens, vegetable gardens or around ornamental perennial and shrub beds.
Cutting back a raspberry bush in early spring is something that requires you to keep a number of important issues in mind. Cut back a raspberry bush in early spring with help from the owner of Eden Condensed, a small space garden design in Los Angeles, California, in this free video clip.
California privet (Ligustrum ovalifolium) is a common landscaping shrub, often used in borders and hedges. This semi-evergreen shrub grows well in U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 5 through 8, which makes it well-suited to all but the hottest and coldest parts of the United States, although it is most common in the Southeast and Midwest. Once established, California privet usually thrives under a variety of conditions, but sunlight is a key consideration when you choose a location for this shrub.
Jimsonweed (Datura stramonium) is an annual member of the nightshade family that goes by a host of colorful common names, including gypsum weed, stinkweed, devil's apple and thorn-apple. Though jimsonweed boasts attractive white flowers, the plant is generally considered a weed due to its high toxicity, pungent odor and tendency to self-sow freely.
Garden flowers often peak in early summer, leaving little color or interest to brighten balmy, late-summer days. Late-flowering, suitably hardy perennials can provide blooms from midsummer to fall in U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zone 3, and gardeners can help many of them return year after year by providing winter protection.
Cannas (Canna x generalis) are showy plants desirable for their attractive foliage and stunning flowers. They add tropical flair to any landscape and can be grown as annuals in climates that won't allow them to survive as perennials. Cannas grow and bloom again year after year in U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 8 through 11 and will grow to their full size in one season if given proper care.
Fall blooming chrysanthemums extend the gardening year to the first frosts, their bright, daisy-like blooms providing generous flower displays. Also called garden mums, hardy chrysanthemums return year after year, requiring minimal attention. Specialist nurseries have bred many chrysanthemum varieties, allowing gardeners a wide choice of color, flower type and plant size. Usually hardy down to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) plant hardiness zone 4 or 5, cold-tolerant varieties are available for zone 3.
Blooming plants bring a garden to life each year with their showy displays and brilliant colors. These plants are selected mainly for their blossoms, rather than for their foliage. When you're picking plants for your flower garden, first look at plants that are right for your U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zone. Then look at color, flower shape, and timing and length of the plant's flowering season. With careful plant selection, you can create a dramatic flower bed that blooms throughout the growing season.
You may know German iris (Iris germanica) by its more familiar name, bearded iris. Irises that fall into this group have six petals -- three upright and three hanging. Each of the hanging petals has a fuzzy line running down the middle, which looks like a beard. These are some of the easiest irises to grow, requiring little attention after planting.
Fall-blooming anemones (Anemone spp.) are one of the best herbaceous perennial plants for fall flowers. They generally have white or pink flowers but some cultivars and hybrids are available with red or burgundy flowers. Determining which anemone would be best for your landscape should be based on your climate and the amount of sunlight exposure at the desired planting site.
White flowers add a splash of bright contrast in the spring garden. Combine the fresh white spring flowers with year-round evergreen leaves, a plant provides year round interest. You can find spring-blooming, low-growing, evergreen plants as small shrubs and creeping ground covers. When selecting plants, consider growing conditions, like sun, soil moisture and soil type, at the planting site. When planting any new shrub or perennial, matching the growing requirements with the site is key to long-term success.
When planting flower beds in the fall, you're always going to want to keep a few important things in mind. Plant flower beds in the fall with help from a bulb and garden expert in this free video clip.
If you're having an August wedding, you're going to want to pay very close attention to the type of flowers you choose to have. Learn about a good flower choice for an August wedding with help from a wedding professional in this free video clip.
The sky vine (Thunbergia grandiflora) exhibits bell-shaped, sky-blue flowers on rambling vines that seem to soar toward the sky with ease. This vine climbs and covers anything it can grab onto. In areas that don't encounter frost, it can flourish like an evergreen, sometimes growing so vigorously that it becomes invasive. But the sky vine will die back if it is subjected to freezing weather. When pruning the vine, your goals should be to control and revitalize its growth. Unless it is grown on an arbor or over a wall, some kind of trellis or other object for support should…
Gypsophila, commonly known as baby's breath, is a flowering plant that is often used for ornamental purposes. The name Gypsophila literally means, "lover of chalk." There are more than 120 different species of Gypsophila in existence throughout the world. Although each of these species is unique in its own way, all tend to share many of the same basic characteristics.
The fragrant air surrounding a flowering tropical shrub often makes it worth the effort required to grow the plant. Tropical shrubs are native to warm or hot climates, making them highly susceptible to weather when grown in areas where temperatures fall farther — especially regions that experience freezing temperatures. Tropical scented shrub choices run the gamut from large shrubs to small bushes that thrive in containers on patios or decks.
Like many plants in your garden or home, agapanthus flowers are subject to issues from disease and pests. Understanding how to best care for your agapanthus flowers, such as the best times to water, will help keep flower pests at bay. Use natural methods whenever possible to control and repel agapanthus pests to avoid environmental concerns.
Weeping bottlebrush (Callistemon viminalis) and crimson bottlebrush (Callistemon citrinus) are tropical to temperate-climate woody plants. Their common name comes from flower spikes that appear in spring and resemble the brush with bristles all around you use to scrub the inside of bottles. The two species have differences and similarities.
Cordyline australis is a striking, tree-like evergreen plant native to New Zealand. Cordyline australis is also known as cabbage tree, New Zealand cabbage palm, ti plant or giant dracaena. Although the plant is sometimes grown as an accent that creates a focal point in the landscape, it is often grown in patio containers, or as a houseplant in cooler climates. The plant is hardy to U.S. Department of Agriculture zones 9 to11.
It can be challenging to find bushes that bloom year-round. If you live in the southern regions of the U.S., particularly zones 8 through 11, some bushes will bloom year-round, more prominently in the summer and less in the winter. While some bushes may be designed to bloom for several months at a time, they will require extra care and support to be healthy enough to offer a continuous bloom.
Magnolias planted in damp, well-drained soil grow straight from a central trunk and flower beautifully in the spring. Little pruning is necessary to keep magnolias healthy and attractive, but you must trim any branches that compete with the central trunk if you want your magnolia to have space near the ground. Removing whole branches instead of flowers alone encourages proper energy distribution and provides you with attractive home decorations.
The exotic-looking design with purple, pink, red or white blooms makes the fuchsia a stunning display in hanging planters. There are several locations both inside and outside your home where you can hang the fuchsia. However, improper placement will spell disaster for the fuchsia and could damage it beyond repair. Since there is a wide array of fuchsia species, consult your local garden center for more information on your specific species of fuchsia.
During the winter, when its characteristic mitten-shaped leaves are absent, sassafras can be difficult to identify, but understanding key identifying features makes finding sassafras easier. Native to the Eastern United States, Sassafras, also known by the botanical name Sassafras albidum, historically was used as a flavoring for root beer. In the 1970s the FDA prohibited the use of safrole, a compound derived from sassafras, in food because of concerns over its potential as a carcinogen. Although no longer chosen as a flavoring, the root beer quality of the tree remains an identifying feature.
Where camellias are hardy, they grow as vigorous evergreen shrubs and retain their leaves year-round. Like other evergreens, they shed some older leaves during winter as part of their ongoing rejuvenation. Camellias typically do not lose their leaves in winter otherwise. However, there are some circumstances which will caused cold-related leaf drop. Guard the health and well-being of your camellias with preventive measures.
Native to the tropical regions of Brazil, the jacaranda tree isn't well-distributed in the United States. According to the USDA PLANTS database, jacaranda can be grown in Florida, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. It's easily recognized by its distinctive deep purple flowers and graceful spreading habit.
Wreaths, once known as diadems, have been around since ancient times. These ancient wreaths were worn on the head for religious purposes. Today, wreaths are used to decorate the indoor walls or front door of a home during yearly holidays and seasons. You can decorate a grapevine wreath with silk flowers for year-round use.
Lilies are a diverse group of flowering plants that grow from large bulbs that store food through the winter until they emerge in summer. There are 80 species of lilies and hundreds of cultivars that vary in size from 2 to 8 feet tall and have red, violet, yellow, white, orange and bicolored flowers. Several lilies bloom through summer into fall. Planting and caring for late summer-blooming lilies is a simple process in home gardens.
A perennial plant is one that lives for more than two years. Trees, shrubs and bulbs are perennials, but the term usually is applied to herbaceous garden plants that lack woody stems and branches. Perennials provide the landscape with a permanent structure that gardeners can build on from year to year. They come in a wide range of sizes, as well as flower and foliage types that you can plant once and enjoy for years to come.
Cheery daisies enhance a wildflower bed and make sweet cut flower bouquets with their cheery yellow and white blossoms. A perennial flower, daisy will come back year after year once you establish it. On average, 70 percent of seeds germinate. Plant more daisy seeds than you want to sprout, to account for this rate.
Blackberries are large, hardy fruit plants native to the U.S. These bushes grow throughout the nation in both domestic and wild varieties and produce sweet, juicy harvests in the summer. All blackberries need the right conditions to produce their harvests, including the right sun, soil, fertilizer, water and structural support. Plant blackberries in rich soil and give them regular feedings for the best fruit harvest.
Oleander (Nerium oleander) rewards the gardener with colorful fragrant blooms and asks little in the way of maintenance in return. Pruning keeps oleander's size in control and removes dead, diseased and weak wood so the shrub can stay healthy. Wear gloves when pruning oleander, since the leaves and twigs are poisonous and will irritate the skin.
Rhodochiton is a climbing vine native to Mexico. This frost-sensitive plant produces purple, bell-shaped flowers, a trait indicated in its common name: purple bell vine. Grow a rhodochiton on a trellis in the garden or against a structure, or plant it in hanging baskets or containers where the bell-shaped flowers can cascade over the side.
Hanging baskets add color and fragrance to overhangs, brighten shady corners of a porch ceiling and allow gardeners to grow in small, vertical spaces. When planted with long, trailing vines, hanging baskets provide even more visual interest and texture. Before planting, note the amount of sunlight your site receives and choose compatible species. Use planters with adequate drainage holes and fill pots with lightweight or soilless potting mixes. Choose small, trailing plants and place them around the edges of your container.
A garden of beautiful flowers can make the difference between a house and a home. The waterfall bellflower is a popular garden flower. Its blue-colored, bell-shaped flowers against green leaf petals give the appearance of water falling down a mountainside. Deadheading is a maintenance procedure that increases the amount of flowers the plant blooms. By removing dead or dying flowers, the plant works to replace the missing flowers with new buds. This helps keep your waterfall bellflower looking healthy and full of blooms. The process of deadheading a waterfall bellflower is very simple.
For a bright spot of color in your winter garden, winter blooming jasmine (Jasminum nudiflorum) is a terrific choice. Winter blooming jasmine, also known as winter jasmine, grows as a vining shrub and can reach heights of 10 to 15 feet if trained along a trellis or forms a low mound if unsupported. This jasmine tolerates harsh weather, but is not fragrant. If cared for properly, in mid- to late winter, winter jasmine blooms with yellow flowers.
Teucrium chamaedrys has the common name of germander and is a shrub that develops a mounding form and rises to only 24 inches tall and 24 to 36 inches wide. The plant grows in United States Department of Agriculture growing zones 5 and warmer and is evergreen in the warmer zones. Pruning Teucrium chamaedrys is mainly to neaten the appearance of the shrub or to trim it into a more formal shape. Perform pruning in the spring and again in the fall.
Typically azaleas will bloom in the springtime, although a select breed has been bred to bloom more frequently. The breed known as the Encore series will bloom twice a year, usually once in the spring and again in autumn. With more than 20 varieties of the Encore azalea, choosing the right one for your particular landscape and taste in design proves easy. These plants grow best in sunny areas and will require little to no pruning. Encore azaleas will thrive in both containers and planted in the ground.
Rabbits eat about anything, especially if they are hungry, making them one of the hardest critters to eradicate from your garden. The good news is there are a few perennials that rabbits find offensive. Using these plants to create a perimeter around the outer edge of your garden, or along the property line, is your best natural defense against rabbits. Be sure to keep an eye on newly planted perennials, as well as those that are just emerging from the ground, since rabbits prefer these plants to older, established plants.
The Coppertina ninebark (Physocarpus opulifolious "Coppertina") comes from the same family as the rose. It's a hybrid plant, a cross between two other ninebark cultivars: Diabolo and Dart's Gold. This deciduous shrub grows naturally in North America. You can come across it in your travels from Quebec, in Canada, to the south in Florida and westward, to the Rocky Mountains.
Spirea plants are among the most hardy of flowering shrubs and can withstand and even thrive under heavy pruning. The typical reason to prune a spirea shrub all the way to the ground is if the shrub has simply grown out of control and you want to start all over again. It is a fairly simple matter to prune spirea shrubs to the ground, requiring only a pair of pruning shears and some time.
Magnolia grandiflora, the Southern magnolia, is a premier landscaping tree in much of the Deep South. The different cultivars of Southern magnolia exhibit varying degrees of cold-hardiness, with some able to grow in some of the colder U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones that the parent species cannot. Differences in size also set these varieties of magnolia grandiflora apart from their parent tree. Nevertheless, most of these cultivars share the same attractive evergreen foliage and magnificent flowers that the parent species possesses, as well as an inclination toward the same kinds of growing conditions.
In 1930, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted Plant Patent Number 1 to “New Dawn” rose. New Dawn has champagne or blush-pink flowers and is classified as a rambling rose, according to the Ohio State University Extension website. Its pioneering first plant-patent status paved the way for thousands of patented plants and lent credibility to plant breeding programs.
Agastache is a vertical-growing flowering plant also known as hyssop. Some varieties of agastache plants are perennials, while others are tender plants that die back at frost. However, they are all heavy producers of seeds, which lie dormant in the soil before germinating in spring. Agastache requires trimming after the first frost kills the stems.
Early spring is a wonderful time of the year for planting garlic -- assuming you live in the right area. Learn how to plant garlic in early spring with help from a garden teacher in this free video clip.
Lamium, better known as spotted dead nettle, is a flowering perennial that thrives in United States Department of Agriculture growing zones 3 through 9, depending on the cultivar. It thrives in a variety of soils and even grows in partially shady locations. The plant stems die back at frost but re-emerge the following spring. Cutting back lamium is an important part of caring for the plant and both removes dead stems and keeps the plant from spreading outside the desired site.
With its pale pink flowers and fruity fragrance, New Dawn climbing rose (Rosa "New Dawn") puts on an eye-catching display in the spring when its long canes are covered in flower clusters. The first plant ever granted a plant patent in the United States, this vigorous rose has stood the test of time and remains a popular climbing rose. Although New Dawn flowers most heavily in the spring, it responds to careful attention with smaller flushes of flowers throughout the summer.
Football Mums are colorful, hardy garden perennials, and bloom in late summer and fall in yellows, oranges, reds, whites and pinks. They last for many years with some careful winter protection, but always restrict their blooming to bright, warm weather. If you want to maintain blooms into winter, plant the Football Mums in pots and move them indoors before the cold weather descends. Maintain lighting, nutrition, moisture and pruning to keep the plants going.
An upright, clumping, herbaceous perennial, the Arkansas blue star (Amsonia hubrichtii) is native to southeastern Oklahoma and northwestern Arkansas. Its botanical name honors Mr. Leslie Hubrichti, who discovered and botanically described it in 1942. American gardeners find that deer do not eat the thin, green leaves or pale blue flowers of this moundlike perennial. It matures 2 to 3 feet tall and equally wide. In autumn the foliage becomes bright golden yellow before dying back.
Myoporum is a genus of plant species native to Australia, ranging from low ground covers to small trees or shrubs, all of which thrive with little care or irrigation. In fact, too much water can be detrimental to these drought-tolerant plants. These plants sometimes produce poisonous berries, so they are best planted away from residential areas but work well as slope covers or on large, open landscapes.
Plants in the Wisteria genus are part of the Fabaceae or pea family, all of which produce seed pods. The genus contains 10 species of twining, deciduous vines, eight of which are Asian natives and two indigenous to North America. Wisteria grow vigorously, through some might say aggressively; certain species are considered invasive in some regions, climbing trees, creating excessive shade and even girdling plants. Five species are commonly grown in the U.S., and all produce fragrant blossoms.
