Your Backyard Garden Information Source
VERBENA – Vervain The rich colors of the Verbena have endeared it to us for yearsand years. Our mothers and their mothers grew it, and we have seen them use hairpins to get it to root along the stems. Most persons know its range of brilliant colors; the pinks are like those found in Trailing-arbutus, especially in the variety Miss […]
REHMANNIA (Named for Joseph Rehmann, physician of Petrograd) Rehmannias are seldom seen in neither gardens nor even in catalogs and yet they are lovely, long, bell-shaped flowers; as lovely as almost any flower of the garden. Rehmannia angulata is really a perennial but, not hardy enough to survive northern winters, it is raised as an annual. The flowers are rosy-purple, […]
RESEDA – Mignonette (Latin name Reseda means “to calm or appease,” and refers to the fact that the plant was employed by the Romans in treating bruises) The sweet fragrance of Mignonette, or Little Darling, is a luxury in any garden. “Its sweetness wins all hearts.” Some of the Mignonettes produce large trusses of bloom 8 inches long and 2 […]
SANVITALIA (Named for Sanvitali, a Spaniard) Sanvitalia procumbens flowers are much like tiny Zinnias, being golden yellow with very dark purple centers, some of them single and others double. The plants grow only 6 inches tall, or rather they are prostrate and spread over the soil instead of growing upward. They start blooming in June and continue until frost. USE. […]
The long stems and tufted flowers of the annual Scabiosa (S. atropurpurea) are charming. The colors also are pleasing in all cases white, light pink, rose, fiery scarlet, pale yellow, azure blue, and deep blackish-purple. The stamens are light in color and in contrast with the petals appear like pins stuck into the flower, hence the name Pincushion flower. The […]
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 […]
PHACELIA (Named from the Greek for cluster; refers to clustering of flowers) The best known sort is Phacelia campanularia, the Harebell Phacelia, which bears Gentian-blue, bell-shaped flowers with contrasting white stamens on one-sided curved racemes. The plants grow 9 inches tall and are somewhat hairy. They remain in bloom for a long time, the flowers being produced in one-sided curving […]
PHLOX – Texas pride (Name from Greek for a flame, perhaps first applied to another plant) The brilliance and clean colors of the annual Phlox, P. drummondi. make it a favorite in the garden. The flowers range from white to pink, primrose, scarlet, crimson, rose, and lavender, some being perfectly clear while others have dark or white eyes. An interesting […]
There are some annuals with showy fruits and among them none is so much admired as the Chinese Lantern plant, which produces large, inflated, orange-red, lantern-like pods containing small, fleshy fruits much like Tomatoes. The flowers are inconspicuous, being borne in the axils of the leaves, and it is after the leaves have fallen that the fruit is most showy. […]
PORTULACA (Rosemoss) (Sunplant) (Seven-sisters) When one visits an old lady’s flower garden, no matter how small it may be, Portulacas are generally seen encroaching on the wide walks and in other little out-of-the-way places where the dry conditions would support few other plants. The dazzling, glossy-petaled flowers are clear yellow, white, scarlet, crimson, orange, and rose. The double sorts are […]