… a tropical perennial with beautiful foliage and flowers with a reputation of being difficult to grow indoors. They have large ovate dark green leaves with prominent white veins, topped with … emerge yellow tubular flowers. They are often sold as small flowering pot plants, but tend to decline if not given even watering, moderate temperatures, and filtered light. As they grow, … they branch out and may lose the lower leaves until they become leggy. Cuttings may be taken to turn them back into compact flowering plants. …
Type: Garden Guide Plant
… marked flowers at the tip and along the top half of the stems from late September up to the first very hard frost. Like other toad lilies, it prefers soils that are consistently … locations in the garden. Once established, this very old Japanese cultivar is more resistant to soil that sometimes get too dry. You may need to protect the plant from rabbits and deer until the root system is well established—they love …
Type: Garden Guide Plant
… There’s everything to like about Pretoria canna. First, there’s the fresh orange of the flowers with their red throats, deigned to attract bees and hummingbirds (and, in the tropics, bats). Then there’s the foliage – a fresh light green, with finely drawn yellow striations. Cannas are native to Central and South America and they’re one of the oldest domesticated plants in the world, …
Type: Garden Guide Plant
… tree is a lesser-known and little-grown flowering tree that reaches a mature height of 15 to 20 feet. It is a very handsome specimen plant. In late May or early June, fragrant flowers … In September, interesting navy-blue fruits on female plants attract birds. Until it begins to flower, the fringe tree appears lifeless, worrying many a homeowner. When it finally comes to life, it is covered with showy plumes of narrow-petaled white flowers. It is an outstanding …
Type: Garden Guide Plant
… habit. Mums benefit from planting into the garden or containers before the buds begin to show color—this permits their root system to establish itself before the high water use flowers come into their full glory. Bees, butterflies and hummingbirds are all attracted to the nectar-rich flowers. …
Type: Garden Guide Plant
… greentip Natal lily ( Clivia nobilis ) glow bright orange. Each stalk bears an umbel of 20 to 60 flowers that fade to pale green tips. When grown from seed, this species takes at least 6 years or more to flower, but each plant can live many decades. Clivia nobilis was named in 1928 in honor of the …
Type: Garden Guide Plant
… Earth Stars are terrestrial bromeliads native to the rainforests of eastern Brazil where they grow on the forest floor. Black Mystic has long … Each leaf has silvery bands which result in a highly dramatic appearance that has been likened to a pheasant leaf or a spider's web. Earth stars require bright indirect light, consistently … are not hardy in Chicago, but can be overwintered in a bright location with special attention to their watering and humidity needs. …
Type: Garden Guide Plant
… fertile stem. Its thick stands of shoots can choke other plants and requires prolonged effort to remove from sites due to rhizomes. The fertile stems of common horsetail appear in early spring before the vegetative stems have grown tall enough to block spore dispersal by the wind. The spores have appendages on them that curl when wetted …
Type: Garden Guide Plant
… silvery pink or silvery mauve flower heads that appear in late summer. This plant can grow to 7 feet in height although 5 feet is more common, and about 3-4 feet in width. This plant is popular with pollinators and is not attractive to deer. Because of its height this plant is suited to the back of a herbaceous border or could be an unusual screen or hedge. …
Type: Garden Guide Plant
… of pastels from light green through yellow and soft pink (colors change as they age). Native to rocky hillsides in Iran and Turkmenistan, the plants are adapted to begin growth early in spring — when moisture from winter rains or snow is still available — … their life cycle before the heat of summer parches the landscape. Fritillaria was given to the genus because the dried seedpods are shaped like a dice box Frittilus of yesteryear (Roman …
Type: Garden Guide Plant
