Snowdrop, Galanthus nivalis and other Galanthus species, are one of the best spring flowering plants. The common advice given for transplanting them is that it should be done ‘in the green’. Transplanting in the green means transplanting snowdrops right after flowering, while the leaves are still green.
I suspect that this myth has been handed down for many generations, but it is not based on fact. Lets have a closer look.
The standard advice is to prune spring flowering shrubs right after flowering and to prune summer flowering shrubs in winter or early spring. Is this the best advice?
GardenMyths.com was contacted by Formostco Inc to trial one of their new plants, Liriope ‘Super Blue’. They wanted to know if the plant was hardy in our area (Zone 5b). This blog entry will be used to track out experience with the plants.
Baptisia australis (false indigo) is known to be difficult to grow from seedlings. Several sources report that plants die during the transplanting and subsequent maturation process. Today’s post reports on my success rate for maturing these seedlings.
In a previous post I reported on a research project to determine the best way to germinate Baptisia australis seeds.
I had a garden open house yesterday for a local gardening group. It was a beautiful day and I was enjoying the visitors, or at least I was until one of them mentioned that I had the dreaded ‘dog strangling vine’. News to me! I have never had it before. I asked to see it and a few guests followed us to one of my clematis arbors. They pointed to evil villain.
I smiled and told them that this was a precious seedling I had grown a few years ago. I thought I had lost it during the winter, but luckily it survived. It even flowered with very small dark red/brown flowers. I mean very small! It was now making seed pods – nice long slender pods. I was very proud of my plant.
Daniel Chamovitz has written a book called “What a Plant Knows”. An interesting title, but can a plant really know anything?
You are at the nursery and have found a nice-looking plant. Is it safe to bring home? Your friend has some extra plants and offers to give you some – should you take them? In both cases, you can get into a lot of trouble by taking the plant home.
This is a list of invasive plants you should never, never, never add to your garden–unless you want them everywhere.
Nurseries should be restricted from selling them to unsuspecting customers.
See also Products You Should Not Buy!
I was giving a talk at a local Master Gardner meeting the other day and I mentioned that castor beans contain one of the world’s most deadly organic compounds. Someone in the audience commented that you can actually eat several castor beans and you would only get a mild stomach ache.
These two points of view seem to contradict one another. What is the real story?
Deep root fertilization is a recommended procedure by many arborists. Does it work? Is it the best way to fertilize trees? Do trees need to be fertilized?
Just about every book and website tells you to keep clematis roots cool. Planting them so that the roots are shaded is a gardening myth! Clematis roots don’t need to be any cooler than any of your other perennials.
With houses being built closer and closer together, people are more concerned about noise pollution than ever before. There is much talk about planting trees and shrubs between the homes to reduce noise levels, both people noise and traffic noise. How effective are trees in reducing noise?
Trees will reduce noise pollution levels, but only if planted correctly.
Why do we wrap trees and shrubs in winter? It seems to be a northern tradition. Every fall we go out and wrap plants in burlap to keep them protected from winter weather. All the books and all the web sites tell us to do this, so it must be right? Let’s have a closer look.
