Articles Index

Growing Cup and Saucer Vine (Cobaea scandens)

Cup and Saucer Vines is a sprawling, vigorous vine with unusual bell-shaped flowers. It can be a slow started, but it's worth the wait. Here are some tips for growing it well.

Asarina - Climbing Snapdragon Vines

Asarina, or Climbing Snapdragon, may look delicate and dainty, but it's a sturdy, profuse blooming vine. The trumpet-shaped flowers are popular with hummingbirds and butterflies, as well as gardeners. Tips for growing Asarina.

Black-eyed Susan Vine (Thunbergia alata)

Black-eyed Susan vine is quick growing and easy to care for. The tubular flowers are often seen in orange, but they also come in soft yellow, white and a scattering of other colors. Tips for growing Thunbergia alata, Black-eyed Susan vine.

Cardinal Climber

Cardinal Climber is a flowering vine known for its profuse blooms of red, tubular blossoms. A favorite of gardeners and hummingbirds. Tips for growing Cardinal Climber in your garden.

Canary Creeper Flowering Vine

With bright yellow flowers that look like a canary in flight, Canary Creeper is an attractive vine that is also easy to grow. Here are some tips for growing and using Canary Creeper in your garden.

Pansies - Growing a Cool Weather Favorite

Pansies are probably the most popularly grown and most recognizable cool season plant. The variety of colors and the cheerfulness of the pansy’s "face" have made them a long standing favorite. And they’re easy and undemanding to grow. Here are some tips to keep your pansies growing and blooming longer.

Potatoes - Growing Potatoes in the Home Garden

Growing potatoes in the home garden can be easy, if you learn to avoid the pest and disease problems. They can even be grown in containers. Here are the basics on how to grow potatoes.

Echinacea - Coneflowers are Garden Favorites

Echinacea profile. Echinacea or coneflower is an old fashioned prairie plant. Echinacea are hardy, adaptable and reliable repeat bloomers and are expecially popular with gardeners for good reason.

Aguilegia - How to Grow and Care for Columbines

Columbines (Aquilegia) are mid-spring blooming plants loved by both hummingbirds and gardeners.The dangling bell-shaped columbine flowers come in a variety of colors and combinations. Tips for growing aguilegia plants.

Rat's Tail Edible Podded Radish

'Rat Tailed' radish may not sound tempting, but this edible podded radish is zesty, crunch and incredible easy to grow. There are no problems with root maggots, woody bulbs or bolting in heat. Tips for growing 'Rat's Tail' radish.

Growing Broad Beans

Broad beans, best known as fava beans, are one of the earliest vegetables ready to harvest in the spring. Tips for growing broad beans and fava bean recipes.

Peas Please - Growing Garden Fresh Peas

Peas fresh from the garden have a short season of glory. Here are tips for extending pea season, growing healthy, productive pea plants and making the most of the peas you grow.

Growing Scilla siberica (Siberian squill) Plants

Large swathes of blue Scilla siberica bulbs (Siberian squill) are a common sight in the early spring. These brilliant blue flowers are very easy to grow and almost problem free. Tips for growing scilla plants.

Caryopteris - They Don't Call it 'Blue Mist Shrub' for Nothing.

The name 'Blue Mist Shrub' is a great description of Caryopteris. This blue flowering small shrub is easy to grow and attracts butterflies and bumblebees by the dozens. The blue flowers of Caryopteris blend well and any garden and are especially welcome in late summer. Tips for growing Blue Mist Shrub.

Borage - Growing and Using the Herb Borage

Borage is a freely seeding, easy growing annual plant with vivid blue flowers and leaves with the flavor of cucumbers. Both the flowers and the leaves are edible, with a cucumber-like flavor. Here are some tips for growing borage.

Baptisia australis - How to Grow and Care for False or Wild Blue Indigo

Baptisia australis, false or wild blue indigo, is a native plant with stunning blue flowers and pea-like foliage. Baptisia is easy to grow in the garden and requires little maintenance. Growing tips and advice for Baptisia australis.

Amsonia (Blue Star) Brings True Blue Flowers to Your Garden

Amsonia, or Blue Star, has clear, true blue flowers, attractive seed pods and glowing gold fall foliage. Amsonia plants are virtually pest and maintenance free. Here are tips for growing Blue star in your garden.

Pulmonaria - Springtime Charmers in the Perennial Flower Border

Pulmonaria, or Lungwort, is far more charming than its name would imply. Blooming when few other perennials have even emerged after winter, Pulmoniaria offers distintive speckled and splashed foliage and small, but profuse and vivid flowers in blues, pinks, corals and whites. There is a Pulmonaria for almost any garden and they are profiled here.

Osteospermum - Growing and Caring for African Daisies

Osteospermum is a tongue-twisting name for a pretty daisy-like flower with unusual color petals and very often, a blue center. Also called African Daisies, these plants make profuse blooming garden plants. Tips for planting and caring for Osteospermum plants.

Radishes - Growing Radishes in the Home Vegetable Garden

Even the humble globe-shaped radish offers a good amount of variety. They can be round or oblong, hot or mild, red, pink, purple, white or bi-colored. Radishes are quick growing and fairly easy, if you follow a few radish growing guidelines.

Prickly Pear - Growing the Hardy Cactus Opuntia compressa - Eastern Prickly Pear

What’s more surprising, that a cactus is hardy enough to grow in USDA Zone 4 or that it should have such a pretty flower? Eastern prickly pear doesn’t have the stature of it’s dessert cousin, the larger prickly pear, Opuntia ficus-indica, which can top 15'. Bbut this smaller prickly pear adds a touch of the mid-west to cooler climates and makes up for its diminutive size with its hardiness. And being a cactus, prickly pear is incredibly easy to grow.

Obedient Plant

Obedient Plant (Physostegia virginiana) got its common name because you can bend the individual flowers in any direction you like - a nice feature for floral displays. Unfortunately obedient plants are not so obedient in the garden, where some varieties can spread to the point of nuisance. However, obedient plant provides a nice splash of pale colors in the fall garden and growing obedient plant is easy.

Comfrey: Growing Comfrey - A Useful and Ornamental Herb

Growing comfrey in home gardens is as easy as planting and stepping back. Comfrey grows well in most any sunny spot with a rich soil. Comfrey plants are as useful as they are ornamental. Here are some tips for success in growing comfrey in your garden.

How to Grow Rutabaga

Rutabaga, turnip's quirky cousin, is a delicious root vegetable that is easy to grow in the home garden. Here are some tips on how to grow rutabaga and ideas for cooking with it.

Growing Turnips

Turnips are a fast growing vegetable that do very well in home vegetable gardens. You can use them both for their green tops and their root bulb. Here are tips for growing and caring for turnip plants.