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  • … Embellishments: pine cones Tools: floral wire, pruners, garden gloves   Step 1: Fill container with wood mulch to weigh your container down so it won’t blow over in the wind and to hold the … to desired height for container. Add upright stems of fir and spruce first, then fill in with pine and cedar. Step 4: Add dogwood and winterberry last. Artificial winterberry will last …
    Type: Blog
  • … general shape and size to be a coyote. The coyote track looks like that of a medium-sized dog, with padded feet making toe impressions in the snow. The tracks formed a few paths across the … and leaves tracks like these. Was the coyote playing? Hunting? Running away? If you’re walking with someone, especially kids, it’s fun to come up with a story. I was also hoping to find evidence of animals interacting. The closest thing I …
    Type: Blog
  • … species of orchids on the planet, about 70 percent are epiphytes—plants that grow on trees, with above-ground rather than in-ground roots. Known as aerial roots, they act as anchors and … orchids grow  baby plantlets, called keikis , that can be removed from the mother plant along with their own set of adventitious roots. The keiki growing at the top of this  Phalaenopsis … is the number one threat to an orchid plant. Orchid roots rot easily if given too much water—with no switch to prevent roots from pulling in excess water, the plant can drown if left …
    Type: Blog
  • … that women wore in their hats. Since then, the great egret, standing more than 3 feet tall with a nearly 5-foot wing span, has become the symbol for the National Audubon Society, founded … a place farther north to raise young in nests close to trees and shrubs called colonies, often with other large waders including the great blue heron. A great egret ( Ardea alba ) fishes; in … Freeman During breeding season, a patch of skin on the bird’s face turns green, contrasting with the bright yellow bill. Males perform fancy courtship displays, opening up and fluffing …
    Type: Blog
  • … I got the call, I looked into the hospital, which is known worldwide for treating patients with respiratory, immune, and related disorders. In the girl’s case, the doctors apparently had a … evergreen shrub that is native to Japan. A hospital official began the search for the plant with a colleague of mine at the Denver Botanic Gardens. My colleague met the girl’s grandmother, …  did appear to be the culprit, and the hospital is continuing to test the girl’s blood samples with extracts from the  Thujopsis  to determine what constituents are causing the allergic …
    Type: Blog
  • … what so many dedicated horticulturists at the Garden have been waiting for, and watching for, with  our collection  of eight titan arums over these last 12 years. I arrived at the Garden just … Tim and scientists Shannon Still and Pat Herendeen, I had the chance to hand-pollinate Alice with pollen supplied by “Spike” and our friends at the Denver Botanic Gardens. That moment was … joining the seven other titan arums in the Garden’s collection. Will serendipity happen again with another corpse flower bloom? Nature will determine that. But I do know these kinds of …
    Type: Blog
  • … steps to protect these plants. If you have some perennials in a warm area of the garden with more pronounced growth, they might benefit from a light layer of mulch. For the most part, … for most gardeners to do in their perennial beds. Even in great weather for pruning, proceed with care. Spring-flowering shrubs like viburnums, lilacs, and forsythia set their flower buds … pruning, which is the aggressive pruning of overgrown shrubs to bring them back into scale with the garden. Shrubs like hydrangea (except oak leaf hydrangea), potentilla, and spirea that …
    Type: Blog
  • … soil seed-bank concept into an awesome forest floor terrarium.   Materials 10-gallon fish tank with top Pea gravel (I used ceramic gravel.) Mesh fabric (You could also use cotton fabric or … of the terrarium. This will collect excess water and keep the soil moist. Cover the gravel with a sheet of fabric to prevent the next layers from filling spaces between the gravel. You want that air space. Cover the fabric with a layer of moistened coconut fiber or potting soil, about an inch deep. Spread your forest …
    Type: Blog
  • … orchid” for beginning collectors: it requires very little care, and yields great rewards with blooms that last up to three months! Early success with a moth orchid leads growers to try other species and, finally, to orchid addiction. But how …
    Type: Blog
  • … genera. Quercus is the largest tree genus in the flora of North America (north of Mexico) with more than 90 species recorded. They range in size from knee-high multi-suckering evergreen … of Iberia creating jamón de Iberica ballota (ham from Iberica hogs fed on acorns) and packed with antioxidants—and also the most expensive ham in the world. Oak root systems support the … peccary, and many more of our native fauna also feast upon acorns. Among them are blue jays with specialist hooks on their beaks used to open the seeds. Dried leaves and bark from oaks …
    Type: Blog