All the Dirt on Gardening

Beard tongue is the common name for husker red penstemon, or penstemon digitalis husker red. Admittedly, some gardeners consider it a thug due to its eagerness to reproduce, but penstemon has its place in the cottage and butterfly garden. The leaf color is a gorgeous green and purple-maroon. The late-May flowers are white, with a soft lavender-pink color at the bud-base. Hummingbirds and tiny pollinators visit the flowers. Plus, the plants are durable enough to be successful in your most challenging dry soil in part-sun, at the base of shrubs, or along the sidewalk. However, with too much shade and they can become weak and fall over.  Like many penstemons, they are cold hardy in zones 3 to 8, making them shrug off our ice and snow. Plus, husker red is one of the few penstemons that can thrive despite a wet winter, or drought, humidity and heat. Penstemons are mostly native to dry climates so the one condition that they cannot tolerate is wet clay or locations where the plan...

Proven Winners  offers several Summersweet varieties and each one is more appealing than the other. They are varieties of an American native plant, deer resistant shrubs, loved by butterflies and hummingbirds! No serious insect or disease problems. Prefer consistently moist soil that is not allowed to dry out. Enjoys up to full shade and will bloom there. Clethras can be massed around your house foundation where you can enjoy their summertime flowers and sweet scent. They enjoy moist feet so water gardens, stream banks and generally damp places in your yard are a good location. Let them naturalize in a cottage garden where they can spread out. If you've heard about the native Clethra's legginess and tendency to sucker with age, Ohio State University's Horticulture Department points out that these hybrids have revolutionized Clethras and designed ideal garden plants that remain dense and compact. Read their entire assessment here . Here's the rundown on their v...

I saw Agastache Apache Sunset in bloom at a Colorado Springs Xeriscape demonstration garden. And, while it is a little more dusty-colored than the one in this promotional photo, it is eye-stoppingly beautiful when it blooms. Native to the US. Attracts bees and butterflies, deters deer because the entire plant smells like licorice. Silver leaves; no need to describe the fall-blooming flowers! Like all mints, the stems are square. Cold hardy as a perennial in zones 5 to 9 and drought tolerant even in full sun and mountain climates. Seeds available from Swallowtail Gardens Germination takes 2 or 3 weeks so start the seeds now, transplant them in another month, flowers will come late summer and until first hard frost. Space seedlings 18-inches apart. If your winter temperatures go lower than 20 below zero, be sure to mulch the plants' roots after the first freeze. Makes great cut flowers for inside the house, too.

Lavatera is in all the seed catalogs. Fedco Seeds' catalog describes L. trimestris thusly, " Every stalk is covered with single funnel-shaped blossoms....Cut when flowers are unfurling or have just begun to bloom. Vase life is one week...Botanical name honors the 16th century Swiss naturalist brothers Lavater, and the three-month bloom time in warmer climes. (150 seeds costs 90-cents). Lavatera is a mallow or Malvaceae. A website dedicated to this plant family, www.malvaceae.info, introduces it with these comments, "Malvaceae is known as the mallow family in English; as les Malvacées in French; as Malvengewächse in German; as Le Malvacee in Italian; as Kaasjeskruidfamilie in Dutch; as Malvaväxter in Swedish; as Katost-familien in Danish, as Kattostfamilien in Norwegian; as Malvakasvit in Finnish, as kassinaerilised in Estonian; as Mályvafélék in Hungarian; and as Slazowate in Polish. Tiliaceae is known as the lime family in England, as les Tiliacées in French; and Lindeng...