September 2010

The caramel-fragrant leaves of the Katsura tree have already fallen, as have those of three horse chestnut kin, the two Ohio buckeyes (Aesculus glabra) and the Yellow buckeye (A. flava). Both the Yellow and the Ohio buckeyes have similar foliage and pale yellowy-green flowers, and the only way I can distinguish betweeen them is by [...]

A Better Way to Plant Colchicums In May of 1999 I opened up my new issue of Horticulture and started reading "In Search of a Mowable Groundcover." Canadian author Brian Bixley described an ingenious planting scheme that involved interplanting colchicums with hardy geraniums. In the middle of August, he mowed down the geraniums. Two weeks [...]

Lee Valley is selling remaindered copies of A Gardener's Guide to Frost: Outwit the Weather and Extend the Spring and Fall Seasons for only $7. This has got to be the best book for cold climate gardeners that I've read, but hardly anyone seems to know about it. (Read my review of A Gardener's Guide [...]

Much to my regret, I missed Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day this month. For the most part, the same things that were blooming last September were blooming this September. (No mums yet, oddly.) But I did want to share a few things. The mallow is a descendant of Malva sylvestris ssp. mauritiana that I originally grew [...]

What better way to celebrate autumn than with a native wildflower more noted for its fruit than its flower. Bur cucumber (Echinocystis lobata), also known as wild cucumber, balsam-apple, or Concombre sauvage, grows on my property in a hedgerow surrounding a ditch. The leaves of this vine are often described as maple-like, but remind me [...]

Once I had a visiting friend comment, “Everyone is so hospitable (here); I’ve never seen such smiley people”. I’ve realized it’s probably because we know something that the others don’t, and I think it’s time to break my silence. As much as we like the sun, heading out in shorts and t-shirts when it gets [...]

If you're like me, every spring you walk around the garden looking at the fresh leaves of emerging perennials, thinking that you should really plants some spring flowering bulbs nearby to take advantage of the lovely foliage. But I never write down my ideas, and I always forget. Fortunately, researchers with the Horticulture Department of [...]