The umbrella plant may be seen as octopus tree—both names from the spreading leaves with large leaflets in an umbrella spoke pattern. It often goes just by the genus name of Schefflera (said as scheff-Lair-ah), named after the nineteenth-century German […]
Europa Hardiness Zone Map
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Columnar or Fastigiate trees
Columnar or Fastigiate trees To the botanist, the word fastigiate means ‘with parallel, erect, clustered branches’. It has become more widely used in a more generalized sense for trees with narrow crowns. All those mentioned are derived from natural sports […]
Standard Potting Mix
Standard Potting Mix 1.5 Bales of LakelandCoarse Peat2 Bags of Supreme Perlite1 Bag of TurfaceTotal: 9.75Bushels6.00 Bushels1.50 Bushels 17.0 Bushels Add by weight: DolomiteGS AG;MicromaxAquagro `G’Osmocote 18-6-12 950gms (56 gm per bushel)515 gms (30 gm per bushel)515 gms (30 gm […]
Cornell Epiphytic Growing Soil Mixture
Cornell Epiphytic Soil Mixture Recipe The Cornell Epiphytic Mix was developed for plants that require good drainage and aeration and can withstand drying between waterings. Plants having coarse, tuberous, or rhizomatous roots are in this category. * Fir bark comes from […]
Gone but not Forgotten
GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN There is a beautiful, rather elegiac song by the American composer, Samuel Barber called “Sure On This Shining Night”. The piece has a particularly luscious phrase–“high summer holds the earth”. Right now in my garden, that […]
Protecting Plants from the Sun and Heat
The gardener must at times give plants protection against too intense light and against excessively high temperatures. Damage from intense light is most likely to occur when naturally shade loving plants are exposed to direct, strong sunshine; when sun loving […]
How to Plant Blueberry bushes
How to Cultivate the Bushes That Yield This Delicious Berry The Blueberry is a native American fruit harvested from wild plants since the country was settled. About 1910 the late Dr. F. V. Coville of the United States Department of […]
A Guide to Growing Carnations
CARNATION: FOR GREENHOUSE AND OUTDOORS Carnations in all their various forms are generally considered to be derivatives of Dianthus Caryophyllus, although the origin of some is not entirely clear. In North America, when referring to carnations, we immediately think of […]
Growing Calanthe Orchid
Autumn and winter flowering evergreen and leaf-losing Orchids natives of Asia, Africa and Australasia. The name Calanthe is derived from the Greek kalos, beautiful, and anthos, a flower. Calanthe belongs to the family Orchidaceae. Leaf-Losing Kinds Of these, the two […]