Your Backyard Garden Information Source
The modern delphinium is one of the most spectacular and popular garden flowers. There are wide ranges of colors, several flower forms, and varieties of different heights. Hobby growers strive to produce the largest individual flowering spikes possible. PLANT RIGHT: Select a sunny location and a soil as deep which is rich as possible. In early Spring, set plants into well-prepared […]
Dahlias, especially small flowered kinds, have great possibilities as border plants. They may be used in masses or planted in combination with annuals and perennials. Most of the small Dahlias are early and profuse bloomers, starting to flower in July and continuing right through till frost. Dahlias in combination with other flowers should be planted as early as the ground […]
From the Greek helein, to kill, bora, food; some species are poisonous (Ranunculaceae). Hellebore. Hardy perennials, often retaining their leaves through the winter, with thick fibrous roots. All flower early in the year and the flowers are long lasting. Most of them have handsome, leathery, divided leaves, sometimes spiny. They are natives of southern Europe and western Asia. Species cultivated […]
This is the time to set Poinsettias under way. If last year’s plants were kept for growing on for another season they should now be brought from their resting quarters and given a location in which the maximum of light is available. Light is a vital need if Poinsettias are to form worthwhile bracts. Lack of light may show healthy […]
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 […]