Senna hebecarpa is rarely grown in gardens but it deserves to be used more frequently. It is a perennial that can grow to 180 cm (six feet) and has unusual compound leaves. Both of these features make it look more like a shrub.
Common names include American senna, wild senna and the northern wild senna. It is a North American legume, that hosts nitrogen fixing bacteria in it’s root nodules.
Jiffy peat pellets, also called Jiffy pellets and Jiffy-7, are a convenient way to start seeds. Just add water to the small pellets and they expand, ready for us. Place a seed in the top and in no time you will have happy seedlings.
This all sounds like a good idea, but how well do plants grow? Are the pellets bio-degradable in the garden?
Compost tea is reported to be great for growing plants, and some companies even call it a compost tea fertilizer. What is the NPK value of this magic potion?
I started this post about a year ago, and at that time, there were many products on the market, but I could not find one that provided the compost tea NPK value. I checked again today and was surprised that the number of compost tea products available is down significantly. Maybe it was too expensive to ship all that water around the country? Maybe it did not work, and people stopped buying the product?
Interestingly, the number of commercial DIY kits for making your tea is up significantly. When you click on Google Images for ‘bottles of tea,’ you are taken to pages selling kits. Even with kits, the same question needs to be asked. What is the NPK value of the tea these kits produce? Very few of the manufacturers I looked at provided such information, but many did say their compost ingredients were the best. Easy to say if you don’t give any data.
Even if you are not interested in compost tea, the following discussion will show you how companies are misleading consumers.
People speculate that blossom end rot in tomatoes and peppers is caused by a lack of calcium in the soil. Many now suggest that dropping a TUMS (common brand of antacid) into the soil below each tomato or pepper will prevent this problem.
Will TUMS cure blossom end rot (BER)?
This is a very good example of a myth that can be debunked very easily, knowing nothing about BER.
There is a lot of confusion out there about various chives and garlics. Identifying one from the other is actually quite simple, until we add other alliums to the list, then it can become very complicated. In this post I will look at the common ones and provide a simple way to correctly identify your plant. I’ll also include some cultural information.
The last plant to start flowering in my zone 5 garden is Allium thunbergii ‘Ozawa’, the Japanese onion. As I write this it is October 26, 2014 and we have not had a real hard frost yet which is very unusual. Most common fall flowering plants like mums are finished flowering but the Japanese onion is still going strong. It is not bothered by early frost or snow.
There are lots of examples of people trying to use plant leaf characteristics to identify nutrient deficiencies in the soil. This seems to make a lot of sense. If the soil is lacking a specific nutrient, it should show up in the plant and it seems to follow that by examining the physical characteristics of the leaf you should be able to identify the nutrient deficiency.
How reliable is this method of diagnosis? Can you really identify a nutrient deficiency in the soil by looking at plant leaves?
Dictamnus albus, the gas plant, always makes a big splash in the garden when it is flowering and even when it is not flowering it is a very interesting plant with good leaf structure. Even the star-shaped seed heads are interesting. So why is this plant not seen more in gardens? It is very slow growing and I think it costs nurseries too much to get it to a saleable size. Fashions have also changed and this fantastic plant has been left behind in favor of more modern plants. That is a real shame since few garden plants will match the presence of a mature Dictamnus.
Planting perennials may seem easy but there is more to it than you realize. Planting correctly will ensure larger and healthier plants in the long term.
The recommended time for planting garlic in colder climates is mid-fall – October in zone 5. That certainly works but is that the best time?
Spring bulbs, like tulips, are also planted in fall but common advice for these is to plant them as soon as you get them. Earlier is certainly better than later. Planting earlier allows the bulb more time to develop a good root system before winter sets in. Since garlic is a bulb, would the same logic not apply to it? Would it not be better to plant garlic sooner?
In the search for a peat moss alternative, coir, also called coco coir, is the one that is most often discussed. Coir is made from the outer husk of coconuts and is a waste product from the coconut industry. Environmentalists are quick to point out that “since it is a waste product, its use is more environmentally friendly than using peat moss.” How can such common-sense logic be wrong?
Arisaema thunbergii ssp. urashima is a great aroid that adds some excitement to the garden. Known as the dominatrix jack-in-the-pulpit, it appears in late spring and is gone by late summer. Its special feature is a long, dark purple, whip-like spadix that can reach 45 cm long, in true dominatrix fashion.