Professional Gardening Tips
The bold and hearty character of the Purple Cone Flower makes it a striking plant. The flowers are rosy purple with dark, stiff, quill-like centers touched with golden crimson. Echinacea purpurea is the common sort and is frequently listed in catalogs under Rudbeckia purpurea. Sometimes when plants are raised from seed objectionable muddy colors are obtained which are not worthy […]
Among our pernicious weeds is one whose seeds are provided with hooks which catch in our clothing when on a Summer walk through the woods. This is a Geum. It is a surprise, therefore, to find several excellent perennial flowers as its relatives. The common species, Geum coccineum, or chiloense as it is more properly called, grows from 12. inches to […]
Lavandula – Lavender Sweet Lavender is one of the well-beloved, fragrant plants of the old-fashioned garden. It was a favorite because of its delicate odor. Lavender (Lavandula vera) grows from 1 1/2 feet to 3 feet high, has downy, silvery gray foliage and long spikes of blue lavender flowers. It blooms from July through September and produces flowers very freely. […]
When Christ was laboring beneath the heavy cross, He faltered, and a maiden, St. Veronica, rushed forward to wipe the perspiration from His brow. The impression of His face was found upon her napkin. Such is the story of St. Veronica, and because the markings of some species of Veronica resemble a face, this flower was named after St. Veronica. […]
For the different parts of one’s garden there are many good varieties of Lychnis. Two of these are known as Agrostemma. Double Ragged Robin and Cuckoo Flower are both common names of Agrostemma, Lynchis Flos-cuculi. This plant, with narrow, grass-like, grayish foliage, grows from 12 inches to 18 inches high, forming a tuft, and producing many small, delicate, tassel-like flowers […]
The names of this flower are interesting to the garden lover with imagination. It is called Columbine, some say because the flowers appear like the cap of a court jester; others have suggested that the spurs of the flowers causing them to appear like a ring of doves (Colombo) about a dish. And its name Aquilegia, is it from aguilegus, […]
Papaver – Oriental Poppy, Iceland Poppy There are Poppies and Poppies, old-fashioned ones and new varieties, and it would almost seem that they grow more dazzling and more gorgeous each year. Perhaps they are grown in a greater number of gardens and we see their brilliant colors everywhere during the early Summer months, or perhaps, we too have learned the […]
Arabis – Rock Cress, Wall Cress The Rock Cress is a small, white, four-petaled flower, and its masses of snowy bloom early in the Spring contrast beautifully with the Basket of Gold (Alyssum saxatile compactum) and the blue False Wall Cress (Aubrietia). It blooms very soon after the snow disappears and the flowers are so numerous that when a plant […]
There are many kinds of Anemones found growing in cultivated gardens, as well as in the wild of our woods. Some are among the first flowers to bloom along the river banks in the Spring and some bloom even after the early frosts of autumn. All thrive under cool conditions and in many cases the ground should be covered with […]
Galium – Sweet Woodruff, Waldmeister Sweet Woodiuff (Galium odorata) is a small growing, graceful, sweet scented herb. It has small, white flowers and deep green, whorled foliage. The flowers and leaves when dried have an odor like new hay and when laid among clothes, perfume them and keep away insects. It grows from 6 inches to 8 inches high and […]