… I kept one seed growing in the bag all winter, adding water as needed. The bean plant grew for five months, leaning toward the window in my office. The plant produced a white flower about … The red fruit was hidden under the leaves. So if you try this activity, and you stick with it for six months, you, too, may be rewarded with a little treasure! …
Type: Blog
… purchasing them—the sphagnum moss in which they are sold provides too much constant moisture for the plant, and can damage the delicate, epiphytic root system. Anne Nies, a master’s degree … to maintain a healthy growing environment. Our second video details step-by-step instructions for repotting a Paphiopedilum orchid, which has different watering and culture needs from a …
Type: Blog
… and violets of the dominant fall asters, many of them blooming throughout October. Look for bottle and cream gentians in the Garden’s Dixon Prairie or elsewhere. Buried beneath the riot … to locate. Another, more common gentian of wet prairie is also worth a mention. Not so much for its brilliant color, although it is blue and fairly showy, but for the fact that its flower petals remain closed. This is the closed or bottle gentian …
Type: Blog
… juice from the stem of jewelweed and applied it to poison ivy rashes and other skin ailments for a very soothing treatment. It is ironic that “touch-me-not” is a cure for “leaves of three—let it be,” don’t you think? Folklore tells us that wherever you find a … ivy growing near jewelweed, so use caution and be careful not to touch when you are searching for this plant. …
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… sunflower ( Helianthus annuus ‘Panache’) With that in mind, here are five simple secrets for seed-starting success 1. Quality seed starter. Give your seeds a healthy jump start by … before filling with starting mix. 4. The right light. A strong light source is crucial for stimulating plant growth. Without it, plants turn leggy, making them weak and more … in years past, only to have them dry out and wither before you know it? You may be a candidate for a simple capillary mat/self-watering system. After filling pots with seed starting mix, set …
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… to make use of advanced DNA sequencing technologies in biodiversity research. “We have known for quite some time that all plants on land share a common ancestor with green algae, but there … fine level of detail, looking deeply at each plant’s transcriptome (the type of data generated for this study), which represents those pieces of DNA that are responsible for essential biological functions at the cellular level. In all, they selected 852 genes to …
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… Insectivores are critters that depend, to a large extent, on invertebrates, mostly insects, for their survival. I wasn’t sure which shrew this was, but more than likely, it was one of the … spot shrews believe they are seeing mice, voles, or moles. In fact, some of the common names for these critters include mole shrew or shrewmouse. Mice and voles are rodents, which have incisors—those chisel-like teeth for consuming plants and seeds. Moles, like the shrews, are insectivores. The shrews, being …
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… be rejuvenating and take you away from the stresses of everyday life. We started a bucket list for you, focusing on some of the natural wonders in the plant world. We know, oh, just a few … are not your garden-variety plant lovers. These are people who gravitate to plants not just for their beauty or scent but for their resilience, their hunting prowess, their enchantment (even you, Venus flytrap). We …
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… base in beer and scotch. Photo via Finlay McWalter, Wikimedia Commons. GFDL A beautiful vine for the home garden is hops ( Humulus lupulus ), pictured here in flower. Pollinated and fruited … is converted from starch into smaller carbohydrates. This conversion process is important for the brewer, since those carbohydrates will feed the yeasts during fermentation. The brewer … germinate, though—if it did, the embryo would “eat” all of the food reserves, leaving none for the yeast. Instead, grains are only partially germinated, just enough for their …
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… Although slow-growing, this boxwood ( Buxus microphylla ) should make a full recovery. The bad news is that more plant damage is likely to appear once the weather is consistently warm, though … the specimen. Unfortunately, some evergreens will be a total loss. This is especially true for plants grown at the edge of the hardiness zone. To determine whether a bush is going to make it, look for new buds or lightly scratch a branch to look for signs of green wood. Patience is often a …
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