Echinacea – Purple Cone Flower, Perennials Guide to Planting Flowers

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 […]

Lychnis – Rose Campion, Mullein Pink, Perennials Guide to Planting Flowers

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 […]

Cenothera – Evening Primrose, Sundrops

The Evening Primroses are among the truly beautiful plants which anyone can grow in his garden. The plants grow from 1 foot to 2 feet high, spreading out and producing many satiny, Poppy four-petalled flowers of white, light rose and varying shades of yellow. SPECIES. Cenothera fruticosa and its varieties, Fraseri and Youngii, have rich, golden yellow flowers produced freely […]

Dicentra – Bleeding Heart, Perennials Guide to Planting Flowers

The grace of the Dicentras charms us whether in the woods or the garden. The Bleeding Heart, Dicentra spectabilis is one of our most showy old-fashioned flowers which everyone loves. It grows from 2 feet to 4 feet tall and spreads out almost the same distance. The leaves, which are a light, transparent green, are very neat, exceedingly graceful, and […]

Growing Pink Carnation and Dianthus

The genus Dianthus is large, but the popular garden flowers are border carnations, growing about 2 1/2 ft. tall, with exquisitely formed blooms and smooth-edged petals, and pinks in a wide variety of shapes, sizes and heights. They need a sunny, well-drained position, but are not suited to areas which have severe winters. Any soil suits them, so long as […]

How to Grow, Plant, Water, Propagate, Fertilize a Chrysanthemum plant or Hardy Mum

Chrysanthemums Originating in the cooler northern regions of the Eastern Asia, the chrysanthemum responded quickly to the efforts of hybridizers when the first plants were introduced to Europe in the 8th century. Their attraction lies in four main characteristics; flowers may be obtained in various forms and sizes, in virtually every color other than blue; plants grow successfully over a […]

PROTECTING PLANTS FROM WINTER DAMAGE

Besides ice dams on the roof and piles of snow in the driveway, horticultural injury is a fact of life during northern winters. Surprisingly, there are many ways that otherwise long-lived plants may meet their demise in between growing seasons. Direct injury from exposure to cold temperature is the most obvious, and as a result, most gardeners and homeowners pay […]

Carnations and Pinks Dianthus

The genus Dianthus is large, but the popular garden flowers are border carnations, growing about 2 1/2 ft. tall, with exquisitely formed blooms and smooth-edged petals, and pinks in a wide variety of shapes, sizes and heights. They need a sunny, well-drained position, but are not suited to areas which have severe winters. Any soil suits them, so long as […]

How to grow Astilbe

Many of the older species had colourless flowers which may be the origin of the name, from the Greek a, no, stilbe, rightness (Saxifragaceae). A small genus of herbaceous perennials with feathery plumes composed of myriads of minute flowers in white, many in shades of pink and deep crimson. They are delightful waterside plants but they will grow in the […]