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 […]
Heirloom Vegetables and Tomatoes In the 70’s, my father would pack all of us in the station wagon, and drive for what seemed an eternity to visit my relatives. I was pretty young, but I can remember two details quite vividly. My brother getting me to ask, “Are we there yet?” and, visiting my Grandparents. My Grandma was an avid […]
Aconitum – Monkshood, Wolfsbane, Helmet Flower Under trees, in woodlands and even in semi-wild gardens, the Aconitums, when once established, enhance the stateliness and grandeur of a place as only a plant with tall spikes of cool blue flowers can. The flowers themselves are showy, shaped like a helmet or hood, from which the common name Monkshood is derived. The […]
GILIA (Named for Philipp Salvador Gil, Spanish botanist) The Gilias are related to Phlox and, like them, have funnel or salver form flowers. Gilia capitata, Globe Gilia, is a blue sort with flowers in dense heads a half-inch across. The plants grow 18 inches tall and have finely cut foliage. Gilia coronopifolia (rubra), the Texasplume, grows 4 feet tall, has […]
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 […]
The Chinese Balloon Flower is very closely allied to the Campanulas. It grows erect and the stems are rigid. The flowers have five petals and open out rather flat, but when in bud they look like inflated balloons, from whence the common name is derived. The flowers are both single and double. They are blue and white in color and […]
Lavandula – Lavender Sweet Lavender is one of the well-beloved, fragrant plants of the old-fashioned garden. It was a favorite because of its delicate odor. Lavender (Lavandula vera) grows from 1 1/2 feet to 3 feet high, has downy, silvery gray foliage and long spikes of blue lavender flowers. It blooms from July through September and produces flowers very freely. […]
Polemonium – Jacob’s Ladder, Charity, Greek Valerian Jacob’s Ladder is a very ornamental and graceful flowering plant of early Spring and Summer. The flowers are blue, or white, flat or bellshaped, and are borne in spikes; the foliage is very finely cut, much resembling fern fronds. Polemonium caeruleum or the Greek Valerian is rather bushy with long spikes, about 2 […]
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 […]
There is hardly a group of flowers which possess such rare beauty as does the large genus of Campanulas. There are many sorts, some growing inches high and some from 4 feet to 6 feet high, but all have more or less bell-shaped flowers in lovely colors: white, clear pink, blue, rose, purplishrose, violet-blue and lavender. All of them are […]