Your Backyard Garden Information Source
Growing Dahlias for fun and prizes! Other than an important place in perennial borders and beds, dahlias have a definite place of their own … grown In gardens by themselves, carefully staked, fed, watered, and disbudded with extreme care, they will produce relatively few flowers of overwhelming size and perfection. They have become known as the Man’s Flower. – Today’s […]
When you want lots of color quickly, flowers to cut by the armful and bloom all summer, you want annuals. For earliest possible bloom, sow seeds indoors, then transplant-or buy started plants in May. But you’ll still get plenty of flowers if you wait till the danger of frost is past and sow the seed of quick-growing varieties where you […]
The Sweet Peas of our gardens delight us while they provoke us. We sincerely wish that they might bloom for a longer time, yet they are an unqualified joy when they are in flower. Many thoughts arise in the minds of true Sweet Pea lovers. For Instance, Helen Milman, writes: “I think the Sweet Pea is a frivolous flower and […]
SALVIA – Sage (The Latin name used by Pliny meaning safe, referring to the medicinal properties) It is unnecessary to describe the Scarlet Sage which is now much planted in some sections of the United States. There is no question regarding its growth or its blooming qualities, but in some cities its hot color is seen on so many streets […]
Centaurea – Knapweed, Hardy Cornflower, Hardheads, Mountain Bluet The Centaureas are some of the most graceful flowers to grow in any garden. The flower heads are like showy, ragged thistle blooms of bright red, deep purple, golden yellow and blue. They grow from 2 feet to 3 1/2 feet tall and bloom during the Summer months. SPECIES. The Golden Knapweed […]
Beautiful hardy Fall Chrysanthemums October and November are the months which marshal in the Chrysanthemums and if these months be cold and rainy, the flowers do not develop well, but if the days are warm and the nights frosty, but not freezing, these flowers are in the height of their glory. “All through the budding Springtime, All through the Summer’s […]
Aubrietia – Purple Rock Cress, False Wall Cress – Arabis Early in the Spring, our eyes search for color in the garden. We grow the Rock Cress (Axabis) for white, Golden Alyssum for yellow, and Aubrietia for purple, rose, and lavender. But, few people have grown the Aubrietias because they have not known of them although the catalogs list the […]
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 […]
CALLISTEMON—Bottle-Brush Tree (Calliste’mon). Tender evergreen flowering shrubs from Australia which belong to the Myrtle family, Myrtaceae. They are well adapted for growing outdoors in California and in similar mild climates and for greenhouse cultivation elsewhere. They have narrow, dark-green, leathery leaves, which are slightly aromatic when crushed. The flowers are densely packed in terminal cylindrical spikes resembling a bottle brush […]
How to grow Bergenia (ber-gen-i-a) Named for Karl August von Bergen, 1704-60, German botanist (Saxifragaceae). These hardy perennial herbaceous plants with large evergreen leaves were at one time called megasea, and were at another time included with the saxifrages. The flowers which come in early spring are showy in white, pink or red-purple, borne in large heads on long stems. […]