Focus on Flowers

Now, only about 20% of our cut flowers are grown in California, Washington State, and Oregon, where most used to be grown for domestic sale.

Where do our cut flowers come from? Often, South America. Workers in greenhouses cut each stem individually and immediately place each flower in a bucket of water...

Refrigerated trucks and unheated holds of planes are cold, helping cut flowers from abroad to stay fresh during their journey to the U.S.

Over one-hundred million roses are purchased in the United States for Valentine’s Day each year, and nearly all are red and long stemmed.

What we see from our windows all through the cold days of winter is our garden’s architectural structure formed by the trees and shrubs that are the long-term residents of our gardens year round.

For twenty years Henry Mitchell’s column “Earthman” was a weekly feature in The Washington Post.

African violets are quite happy growing in pots in many of our homes and are easily propagated.

Visitors are not charged to see the 55 acres of gorgeous organic plantings in the heart of this major research university.

Emily Dickinson was a renowned poet, but during her lifetime she was known more for her gardening skills.

Here are few poems written, most of them, very long ago.

There has been so much hybridizing, that the differences between a Thanksgiving and a Christmas cactus have become blurred, so it seems reasonable to refer to them all as Holiday Cactuses nowadays.

This may be the perfect year to simplify our holiday decorations. Rather than buying new items, dig around in your closets and see what you can reinvent.

If you have gardeners on your holiday gift list, you can easily accommodate them from the comfort of your own home. Gift certificates to nurseries in the hometown of your recipients, or from catalogues, are always well received.

Most clivia plants produce orange flowers, but you can impress a gardener by ordering a clivia for them as a holiday gift that produces yellow blooms, as yellow is quite rare and treasured by knowledgeable gardeners.

As we look back on the gardening season, we can assess what worked and what didn’t – our successes and challenges in the garden.

In the fall, I leave a few cone flowers and sunflowers for the birds, otherwise I cut spent flowers right to the ground and clean up the debris. I want the beds clear before the spring daffodils and other bulbs bloom.

My garden is very crowded, and so in the fall, I am always wondering where I can plant more spring bulbs without cutting into the existing ones.

It is easy and fun to save seeds from this year’s annuals.

I used to believe that some plants—like peonies, for example—were immune to deer. Not anymore. I have seen deer eat just about every plant...

Not a pretty name for such an attractive plant.

A plant that attracts butterflies to our garden is the pincushion flower. The botanical name is Scabiosa, and these plants usually have blue, white, or pink flowers. As their common name suggests, the shape of the flower resembles a pincushion as the central florets form a rounded shape.

One often sees Veronia, a.k.a. ironweed, on roadsides and in fields and ditches. The wind disperses the seeds, which explains why it is a surprise when it appears in our gardens like an uninvited guest.

We should cut back most perennials in the fall. They don’t look good once it gets cold, so it is best to cut them to the ground and they will come back well next spring.

Joe-Pye weed looks great next to a splash of sunshine yellow from goldenrod or helianthus.

As summer transitions into fall, we usually rely on mums and asters to give us color as the growing season wanes. But here are some other reliable bloomers.