… automatic go-to fall favorites—but what else can heighten your containers and garden with color, texture, and surprise? We love featuring mums in our fall displays at the Garden, but … texture. What’s more, their striking color lasts beyond the growing season, making this an excellent choice for drying—then you’ll be able to add some warmth to interior displays over the … sedges can really help create high visual value and balance. They create height and serve as excellent “fillers” to make those bright blossoms really light up. Little bluestem or purple love …
Type: Blog
Susceptible Plants Crabapple ( Malus ), apple ( Malus ), pear ( Pyrus ), firethorn ( Pyracantha ) Description & Symptoms Apple scab is a common fungal infection of crabapple and apple trees. Small, pale green spots appear on the edges and surfaces of leaves which soon enlarge and turn brown. Leaves will eventually yellow and drop. Apple Scab can also affect fruit, appearing first as pale green …
Type: Plant Info
… perfect petal arrangement dazzles. The American Dahlia Society recognizes 14 official classes with names describing the flower form—including cactus, collarette, orchid, peony, ball, … a year or two before attempting lateral pruning. A dahlia will produce many lovely flowers with no pruning at all, although pinching the growing tip back does encourage a bushier habit. … using a 5-10-10 or 5-20-20 mix; but, as with roses, stop the feeding in mid-August. These fast-growing, succulent plants are almost 75 percent water and require even moisture throughout …
Type: Plant Info
… perform best indoors when grown from seed. Using medium-weight sterile potting mix, cover with milled sphagnum moss and water. Covering pots with a plastic bag or glass plate keeps seeds moist for germination. Seed-grown herbs won't … it for 15 minutes. Use insecticidal soap for severe problems, but avoid harsh chemicals. Some excellent candidates for windowsill growing are thyme, lemon thyme, sage, oregano, basil, …
Type: Plant Info
… carpet of grasses, sedges, and wildflowers, we now often see an uninviting tangle of shrubs with little other than bare soil beneath them. This contrast, between an environment that looks like this … An open-canopied patch of woodland with robust growth of native vegetation in the understory (Photo: Jim Steffen) …and one that … change and instead locking it away harmlessly for potentially hundreds of years—is one such service. Steffen’s more than two decades of work removing buckthorn from the Garden’s Mary Mix …
Type: Blog
… birch cultivar that was selected for its uniform compact habit, adaptability to various soils, excellent disease/pest resistance, and ornamental exfoliating bark. The bark character becomes …
Type: Garden Guide Plant
… attention. When you pick them up from school and ask them about their day, they say, “Fine.” With help from Wheatley, I plan a crew of tropical plants that would do well in my small studio. … (the overactive radiators make sure of that) and I have two windowsills—an east-facing one with bright, direct light, and a west-facing one with low, indirect light. I also have a cat who, although she cannot be bothered with …
Type: Blog
… In the wild, it can tolerate a wide range of pH and moisture conditions, but it must have excellent drainage. This can be best accomplished when the plant is grown in a clay pot … place the container in full sun, water only when the growing medium is dry, and fertilize with a dilute 20-20-20 solution every two weeks. Rosemary benefits from frequent snipping or … 1. Bring the pot indoors to a full sun location before you turn on indoor heat. Most problems with rosemary develop over the winter months. Low light or high temperatures produce leggy, woody …
Type: Plant Info
… in Florida, Texas, and Georgia for their resistance to heat wilt and sun scorch. When supplied with adequate moisture and planted in very well-draining soil, these plants survived southern summers with no major problems. This is good news for Chicago-area gardeners who lack shaded yards. … or semi-shaded gardens; the sun-loving varieties should be marked as such. Even moisture and excellent drainage are the plant’s only requirements. Rarely bothered by disease, young plants …
Type: Plant Info
… for good root growth. Bulbs can be fertilized again when their foliage appears—but this time with a balanced granular fertilizer spread over the soil surface and then watered in. Since bulbs … in the garden require very little care, are easy to plant and can mix and match beautifully with ground covers, annuals, perennials and their big-brother bulbs. And they are perfect in … planting Glory-of-the-snow ( Chionodoxa spp.) 6-10 inches Starry white, pink, or blue flowers Fast spreading in very early spring Sun, light shade; well-drained soil Snowdrop ( Galanthus …
Type: Plant Info
