All the Dirt on Gardening

In the winter of 2007/2008 I bought seeds from Chocolate Flower Farm so I could grow Angelica Gigas. One plant from that seed-starting adventure has survived to grow up. Fine Gardening has this photo of it in a garden. The leaves are gorgeous. It's a biennial so I'm hoping for a flower this year and fresh seeds for next year.  This flower looks like purple broccoli but to the bees it looks like a honeypot! Heronswood catalog has the flower but I don't yet. Plants for a Future's website has this spectacular shot of the bud opening which they borrowed from Wikipedia. Gorgeous, eh? PFAF provides these growing tips Perennial growing to 1.8 m (6ft). It is not frost tender. It is in flower from Jul to August, and the seeds ripen from Aug to September. The flowers are hermaphrodite (have both male and female organs) and are pollinated by Insects.The plant is self-fertile. The plant prefers light (sandy), medium (loamy) and heavy (clay) soils.The plant prefe...

Sustainable gardening is the term used for gardening with the least. Instead of blasting the garden with chemical fertilizers and bug sprays, use the least possible. Rather than using a timed system to irrigate lawn and gardens on a schedule, wait until plants signal a need for water. Gardeners who use a sustainable approach make an effort to add back to the earth. Simple changes can make a difference. Examples include: Use sheets of newspaper under mulch instead of plastic, make a compost pile, dig a basin in the garden to collect rainwater or switch to wildlife friendly fertilizers such as composted animal waste or seaweed. Last Saturday when Dr. Gerald Klingaman spoke at the Northwest Arkansas Flower and Garden Club in Fayetteville, he added his own twist to the whole topic of sustainable gardening. Klingaman chose The Quest for a Sustainable Garden as the topic for his talk knowing that gardeners cannot resist a few high maintenance plants. Any garden we plant is destined to be sho...

GROW SOMETHING DIFFERENT The Cleveland Metroparks Zoo in Cleveland Ohio has a rare treat coming - an exotic plant that has taken 13-years to bloom will show its stuff in the next few days. It resides in the Rain Forest at the zoo where visitors can watch its astounding growth. On July 10th it was 28-inches tall and today it is 51-inches. The plant is a titan arum (Amorphophallus titanum), also known as a Corpse Flower. It is botanically related to Jack In The Pulpit and Cala Lily. Click on the Metroparks Zoo link above to watch the progress toward full bloom. If you would like to grow something similar, check into growing an arum, available from Breck's and Plant Delights Nursery . And, Heronswood has a beautiful 6-inch tall Arisarum proboscideum in their online catalog ($9.95 web special price).