… Giant onion ( Allium giganteum ) forms a clump of 2-foot-long, strappy, gray-green leaves. In midspring, the foliage starts to wither, and 4-foot flowering stems rise up with large, 6-inch globes of purple (rarely white) flowers. It prefers well-drained soil in full sun in a site protected from the wind. Key to naturalizing the giant onion in the garden is allowing the soil to dry from midsummer to fall and applying an annual layer of mulch before …
Type: Garden Guide Plant
… edged with deep pink and accented with deep pink to red centers. The flowers are 6 to 9 inches in diameter. At maturity the plant stands 6 feet high and blooms in mid summer to fall. It is hardy in zones 5–9. The name Hibiscus came from the Greek word “hibiskos” that meant …
Type: Garden Guide Plant
… on spikes rising from the clump of fat green leaves with translucent windows at their tips in midwinter. The windows are created by the absence of chlorophyll in each of the three layers of cells. In the wild, leaves recurve to create a flat surface … in the lower light levels of homes, they frequently lose this characteristic. This plant is very closely related to the genera Gasteria and Aloe , which are also from South Africa. …
Type: Garden Guide Plant
… A native hybrid, Lemon Queen perennial sunflower ( Helianthus 'Lemon Queen') is a strikingly tall beauty, growing to 8 feet in height and 6 feet in width with 2-inch diameter, with soft-lemon sunflowers from late July to frost. Plant 'Lemon …
Type: Garden Guide Plant
… Tamarack or American Larch, is one of the deciduous conifers that they drop their leaves in fall. Early spring growth brings on bluish-green needles in whorls that turn a beautiful shade of yellow in the fall. The natural range of this species …
Type: Garden Guide Plant
… 'Mirranda' is a diminutive cultivar of mountain hydrangea with a mature size of just around four feet. In acidic soils the fertile and sterile flowers are a light blue while in most of the alkaline soils of the Chicago region they are pink. As the flowers age …
Type: Garden Guide Plant
… dense pyramid of needles that are a rich, glossy green; each needle measures only 1/4" to 1/2" in length, the shortest of all cultivated spruces'. It grows in excess of 50' tall with weeping horizontal branches. This refined spruce deserves to be a specimen plant in the landscape. The developing cone is a rich red-purple, very noticeable in the spring. The Oriental spruce provides a refreshing …
Type: Garden Guide Plant
… Champlain hardy shrub rose ( Rosa 'Champlain') is one of the very hardy and disease-resistant shrub roses developed in Canada known collectively as Explorer roses (named after famous North American explorers). … of the summer atop a hardy shrub that tops out at 3 feet, but the rose will slowly increase in width via suckers. Champlain rose has excellent disease resistance, hardiness, a light …
Type: Garden Guide Plant
… leaves that to some resemble a bird's foot. It forms a very small clump of less than 6” in height and about 6” in width. It blooms in early spring with either bicolored (upper petals dark purple and lower … It prefers sandy, dry to medium, sharply drained soils in full sun or light shade. It is considered more difficult to grow than other violets but if sited well, it may self-seed. …
Type: Garden Guide Plant
… This orchid has spidery-shaped flowers that feature green petals heavily barred in black surrounding the yellow lip with an intricate red pattern. This complex hybrid allows … orchids whose parents require cool moist humid environments year round. Other species in the ancestry allow this cultivar to grow in bright light, relatively high humidity with good air movement, and exceptionally well- drained potting media. X Banfieldara is a hybrid cross between Ada , Brassia, and Odontoglossum , which all originated in South …
Type: Garden Guide Plant
