Professional Gardening Tips
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 […]
CENTAUREA . Cornflower and Sweet-sultan (Name derived from a certain centaur that was famous for his ability as a healer) There is a vast array of Centaureas, both annuals and perennial. All of them have more or less thistle-like flowers. […]
IONOPSIDIUM – Diamond flower (Carpet plant)(Violet cress) (From io-the violet; violet-like, referring to the color of the flowers) Related to Candytuft, lonopsidium acaule is one of the most charming of the diminutive plants. It comes from Portugal. The flowers are […]
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 […]
CHRYSANTHEMUM, ANNUAL (French Marguerite) (Crowndaisy) (Name derived from chrysos, golden; anthos flower, refers to fact that some species are yellow) The Annual Chrysanthemums are popular in England, but not well known here although they grow nicely in the United States. […]
LAYIA Tidytips (Named for Thomas Lay, naturalist) A California Daisy-like annual, Layia elegans, has yellow flowers with the rays often white-tipped. The plants are more or less hairy throughout. It grows about 12 inches tall. USE. The unusual white tipped […]
CLEOME Spiderflower Cleome spinosa (pungens) (gigantea), grows 3 to 6 feet tall and is a most interesting garden subject. The four-petaled flowers are pinkish-lavender and white and are given a peculiar, airy appearance by the long-stemmed stamens and pistils, which […]
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 […]
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 […]
COLLINSIA (Blue-eyed-mary) (Innocence) (Named for Zaccheus Collins, a Philadelphia botanist) The visitor to the woods knows the Blue-eyed-mary, Collinsia verna, one of the daintiest of annual wildflowers. Gene Stratton Porter also loved it, she writes: When winter’s chill has scarce […]