Your Backyard Garden Information Source
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 […]
SWEET ALYSSUM (Name derived from a-not lyssa, rage a myth relates that the plant dispels anger) The Sweet Alyssum is one of our most beloved white edging plants. Seed catalogs list many varieties of Alyssum maritimum, some being dwarf, tufted plants and others more or less trailing. The Double Sweet Alyssum is widely used by commercial florists for design work. […]
LAVATERA – Treemallow (Annual-mallow) (Named for the Lavater brothers, botanists of Switzerland) The name Mallow is applied to a number of plants of various habits, all of which bear flowers that resemble Hollyhocks. The common Layia elegans annual Lavatera is L. trimestris (rosea), with blossoms of a very bright shrimp-pink 2 to 3 inches in diameter. The white flowered varieties […]
The flowers of this plant are a delight to those who admire extreme grace, dainty markings, and fantastic forms. Many flowers have been compared by writers to butterflies, but it is only this one that has received the name of Butterfly flower. The Butterfly weed (Asclepias) and the Butterfly bush (Buddleia) is so-called not because they resemble butterflies, but because […]
SILENE – Catchfly (From the Greek for saliva, referring to the stickiness of the stems of some species) The Sweet-William Catchfly, Silene armeria, is a little known but worthy annual and grows 1 to 2 feet tall. The flowers are delicate pink or rose-colored, and are produced in compound cymes, each flower with a short stem, thus differing from a […]
Raising plants from seed is a most economical means of providing a long-lasting display for the cool greenhouse. Where a minimum night temperature of about 45°F (7°C) can be maintained the choice of flowering and of decorative foliage plants is considerable. Many plants that we normally grow as annuals in the open may prove to be perennial when grown under […]
COSMOS (Cosmea) (Mexican-aster) (The name comes from the Greek for orderliness, hence an ornament or a beautiful plant) The Cosmos is not as impatient about coming into bloom as most annuals but waits until it has made its growth before expending its energy in flower production. There is no other tall annual so graceful or so useful as the Cosmos. […]
LYCHNIS Campion (Rose-of-heaven) (Greek for lamp, referring to the flame-colored flowers of some species) The various sorts of Lychnis are generally considered to be perennial but several are annual. The Rose-of-heaven, Lychnis coelirosea, often cataloged as Viscaria oculala, is a lovely little annual with crimson, blue, purple, lavender, pink or white flowers. The five petals are slightly notched and the […]
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 […]
How often we are tempted to praise the beauties of some foreign flower while our excellent native ones pass by with little attention. There are many sorts of Eupatoriums and most of them can be found growing wild in our own country. The hardy Ageratum or Mist, Flower (Eupatorium or Conoclinium calestinum) has myriads of small, fluffy, azure-blue flowers which […]