… When working with a single material, look for uniformity of size and color. The idea is to show a subject off to its best advantage en masse. Direction Attach materials … or wooden wreath base in one direction, clockwise only—the look of an “endless” wreath is much simpler to achieve than a wreath that travels in opposite directions. Dried grasses … so they'll last for several years. Birch bark wreath A few steps down from the gourd wreath is another Nancy Clifton creation, made from birch bark. Its natural curl lent itself to a …
Type: Plant Info
… over the flowers in search of nectar all summer long. A native perennial, butterfly weed is found in prairies, restored natural areas, embankments, along roadsides and railroad tracks, … Magnet for Monarchs A member of the milkweed genus Asclepias (uh-SKLEE-pee-us), butterfly weed is a host plant for the female monarch butterfly, which may lay its eggs on the underside of the … most other milkweeds, butterfly weed does not produce thick, white sap. Instead, the sap is thin and almost clear. Butterfly weed ranges in height from 1 to 3 feet tall, which makes it a …
Type: Plant Info
… The end of the growing season is often a bittersweet experience for gardeners. It signals the end of months of work—but also … blue color well into winter. Elijah Blue blue fescue ( Festuca ovina glauca 'Elijah Blue') is the bluest of the fescues and retains its compact form all season. Blue oat grass ( … flowers complement the slender blue-to-silver foliage; in winter, the blue foliage alone is the attraction. Artemisia stellerana 'Silver Brocade', the hardy dusty miller, features …
Type: Plant Info
… of your own this Halloween. Goth gardening (drawn from Victorian or Gothic gardening) is having more than a moment; it’s been all the rage for years. In 2024, it was dubbed one of … implemented dark, moody containers, sections of their space, or entire gardens. The appeal is in the creativity: Goth gardening features dark, dramatic-looking plants, but it also embraces … elements like statues. A goth garden or container isn’t supposed to be perfect: The point is to step outside the box—to play with personality and aesthetic. It’s a great option for …
Type: Blog
… king trumpet mushrooms, carnations – fresh cuts Sustainability, reimagined The Last Show is a thoughtful reminder of the Garden’s commitment to sustainability, celebrating renewal … The Final Cut , features a coppiced willow stool—pruned year after year until its surface is covered in scars. Removed at last, the stump hovers above a bed of disbud spider mums grown by … Coppiced willow stool, disbud spider mums Playing with dead things For Toth, the project is as personal as professional. “I feel like a kid in our Nature Play Garden where I sometimes …
Type: Blog
… Botanic Garden. “It stopped me in my tracks.” The irony? That kind of abundance in the wild is rare. More than half of the world’s orchid species could disappear within this century, as … the one Hutchins saw, she said, show both what’s at risk and what might still be saved. “This is what I want for many more places” she said. “It’s what I hope we can help create.” Johanna … conditions, they tend to disappear early when ecosystems are under stress. Their decline is often an early warning that something deeper is breaking down. So, if wild orchids matter so …
Type: Blog
… the pollinators visiting these plants. A standout plant, looking almost like a small shrub, is white wild indigo (Baptisia alba). This is the white-flowered cousin to blue wild indigo (Baptisia australis) ; this plant, not native … tubular flowers, foxglove beardtongue (Penstemon digitalis) . On the lower half of the flower is a large hairy sterile stamen (the part of the flower that produces pollen); perhaps this …
Type: Blog
… basics about male and female flowers. And then they started talking pollen. Flashback: What is pollen? Tiny squiggles of pollen emerge from the male flowers about three days after Spike’s … that needs to meet up with another flower’s female genetic material. Technically, pollen is a haploid or gamete, the cell that carries the male half of the plant’s chromosomes. The covering of a pollen grain is directly related to how the pollen travels to the next flower. That’s why wind-pollinated …
Type: Blog
… diseases or be browsed by critters. But the main reason that a perennial has evergreen leaves is to provide a place to store energy and nutrients while dormant. The leaves are tricky … on the north or east sides of a structure to provide shade in late winter because the sun is lower. Applying mulch will also help insulate the ground. The energy and nutrient reserves within evergreen leaves are used by new growth in the spring. This is why most evergreen perennials do not shed their original leaves until the fresh leaves have …
Type: Blog
… as long as they are planted in well-drained soil. Another reason why your lilac may not bloom is because it is being pruned at the wrong time of the year. Lilacs bloom on the previous season’s growth and … Fertilizing will not increase the amount of blooms. If lilacs are planted near turf that is regularly fertilized, this could also be a cause of a lilac's failure to bloom. …
Type: Plant Info
