… produced throughout the summer on this ornamental annual poppy with bluish-green leaves. This is a pollinator magnet. Plant this flower in full sun and in moderately moist, rich soils and deadhead to encourage continuous flower production. …
Type: Garden Guide Plant
… foliage on this nonhardy perennial. This plant thrives in heat but does not like drought; it is indifferent to soils. It's a great pollinator plant in the garden, attracting both insects and hummingbirds. …
Type: Garden Guide Plant
… 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, … that butterfly weed was named the 2017 Perennial Plant of the Year. It’s a welcome addition to the home garden. It requires little maintenance, tolerates drought, resists disease, and … which contains latex and complex chemicals (cardenolides) that make the plants unappealing to most animals, including deer and rabbits. Unlike most other milkweeds, butterfly weed does not …
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 … the splendid time when each day offers up something new, from the bold bloom of a rhododendron to the subtle emergence of flower heads on ornamental grasses. The late-autumn and winter gardens … But healthy, well-tended plants, sited in their preferred environments, can turn out to be the unexpected treasures of the winter garden. Blue For gardeners partial to blue plants, …
Type: Plant Info
… Q: How do I start tomato seedlings indoors? A: To grow your own tomatoes for transplanting outdoors, sow the seeds indoors four to six weeks before the usual last frost (around May 15 in the Chicago area). Use a sterile seed … of true leaves, pinch the weaker plants down to soil level. Water the seedlings when the soil is dry. It is important to slowly acclimate tomato plants to outdoor temperatures, wind, and the …
Type: Plant Info
… The lily leek ( Allium moly ) produces bright, golden-yellow flowers on 4- to 6-inch stems above lax, broad-leaved foliage. Thriving in sunny soils that dry in late summer, … seed. Bruised foliage and flowers smell strongly of onions, which may explain why this plant is avoided by deer and rabbits. Butterflies are strongly attracted to the nectar. …
Type: Garden Guide Plant
… small, round-topped shrub or a desirable small tree, the red buckeye can reach a height of 10 to 20 feet. Its lustrous dark-green leaves are composed of 5 leaflets. Beautiful, vivid, red-flowered panicles 3 to 6 inches long bloom in May. The brown seeds that mature in October look like the eye of a buck. Its fall color is another attractive feature of red buckeye. …
Type: Garden Guide Plant
… in summer at the tips of the stems clothed in glossy green leaves. The heaviest flowering is in June, followed by occasional blooms into August. Plant 'Aphrodite' in full sun to partially shaded locations with moderately fertile neutral pH soils that never completely dry out. Rabbits and deer avoid eating this plant due to the chemicals that provide the spicy fragrance. …
Type: Garden Guide Plant
… Multiple flat, star-like, sterile white flowers come into flower in June and continue up to the first frost. Hayes Starburst smooth hydrangea ( Hydrangea arborescens 'Hayes Starburst') … on new wood, so it will reliably flower in the Chicago area, regardless of how much damage is done to the stems of the plants over winter. …
Type: Garden Guide Plant
… Porcelain-white flowers with yellow centers are produced atop 3-foot stems from midsummer up to frost (if regularly deadheaded). Its leaf growth tops out at 1 foot in height, and a clump can spread to 2 feet across. This daisy is a reliable, long-term perennial for the Chicago region. …
Type: Garden Guide Plant
