plants

Everybody in garden design is talking agaves. Retro modern folks are digging golden barrel cactus. We’re even seeing fire stick euphorbia in pots of mixed perennials. While these new ventures into old succulents are revitalizing the aesthetic of our gardens, there are some key concerns for safety among these often prickly plants. Succulents have the market [...]

English ivy suffers a most profound duality.  While at once refusing to grow where we want it to, escapees can naturalize to engulf whole landscapes.  This is just one aspect of an insidious spreader that has wrecked havoc unparalleled in the annals of horticulture.Though it is commonly known as English ivy, Hedera helix is actually [...]

If you’re a first time homeowner, listen up.  If you think you can’t grow fabulous flowers, read on.  If past failures have made you throw your hands up at gardening in general, get ready to rumble!  There’s a secret to great big bold flowers.  Forget about all that stuff you see in catalogs that brands a [...]

They can be found in the fossil record of virtually every continent on earth, changing little in the past 200 million years.  They came to prominence in the Mesozoic, a period known as the age of cycads and dinosaurs.  Plants known as “the cycads”? are true living fossils that make fabulous garden plants.  Though they may appear [...]

Aristotle made no bones about it.  Regions north of the Mediterranean Coast were not suitable for civilized life.  His southern world was a warm, mild one that stretched across most of Spain and Portugal, southern France, all of Italy except the Alps, Greece and North Africa.  There the moderate climate spawned a native flora of [...]

In the 15th century Florentine Codex of Aztec physicians, the healer is “well versed in herbs, who knows, through experience the roots, the trees, the stones.  She keeps her secrets and traditions.”?  The healer is clearly female.  But where the Codex covers Aztec physician, the text indicates this role applies to the male gender.    Today [...]

English ivy suffers a most profound duality.  While at once refusing to grow where we want it to, escapees can naturalize to engulf whole landscapes.  This is just one aspect of an insidious spreader that has wrecked havoc unparalleled in the annals of horticulture. Though it is commonly known as English ivy, Hedera helix is actually [...]

In the south of the Valley of Mexico, the Xochimilca, people of the flowers, founded their city upon a verdant wetland.  They dwelled on earth just inches higher than the shallow lake surface that surrounded them.  To create more dry land they hauled lake bottom muck in baskets to create man made islands known as [...]

There’s a hot side to every homesite.  It’s the place where all your flowers wither in the afternoon sun.  The soil dries out and may even crack from lack of moisture.  No matter how often you water, it never seems to catch up to the rest of  your garden.  Year after year the hot side [...]

Don’t let yellow start thistle get a start in your garden!  It can appear without warning to gain a foot hold, particularly in suburban and rural homesites.This painfully prickly plant has already earned a very bad reputation among ranchers who have watched it damage valuable range land.  This imported annual thistle was first brought to [...]