Fans of Pete the Cat know that Pete is a cool, likeable guy, with a positive attitude and he shows himself to be just that in Eirc Litwin’s Christmas story about Pete. Suitable for children ages four to eight, the book is a parody of Twas the Night before Christmas written in the same kind of rhythm but infused with modern updates. A catchy song that is an integral part of the story is available free from the publisher and adds to the fun. [click to read full post]
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Bull thistle is a biennial weed common in Europe and Asia. It was introduced into North America in the 1800s and has naturalized all over the United States including Hawaii and Alaska. It is usually found in disturbed areas such as roadsides, ditch banks, logged areas and pastures but makes its way into gardens and lawns. It is not a major problem in vegetable gardens or annual beds where tilling the soil each year prevents it from completing its two year life cycle. The flowers provide nectar to many insects including honeybees, wool-carding bees, and butterflies. Birds, especially finches, are attracted by the seeds. [click to read full post]
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A native of the mountains of Yugoslavia, Albania, and Greece, this evergreen tree is popular in Scandinavia due to its cold tolerance and adaptability. It grows consistently and slowly, and maintains a dense, broadly pyramidal form. The dark blue-green needles are three to four inches long and held in bundles of five. The pendulous cones are three to six inches long, cylindrical, and produced singly or in clusters. Green at first, they become light brown with maturity. The bark is silver gray and darkens with age. Unlike American native white pines (Pinus strobus), Macedonian pine is resistant to white pine blister rust and may be useful for developing rust resistant varieties. It is a fine specimen trees for parks and large gardens. [click to read full post]
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Few plants offer the delicious fragrance of a gardenia when it blooms. It doesn’t take many flowers to fill a whole room with the sweet scent so one small plant can change the whole ambience of a large area. Originally from China, this evergreen shrub has and waxy, white to cream colored flowers and, shiny, leathery, dark green leaves. The flowers are produced from late winter to early spring but the foliage remains attractive all year long. All that beauty, however, comes with a price; gardenias are not easy to grow indoors. They are finicky and will drop their leaves or flower buds if not provided with the right temperature, water, and light. They especially dislikes hard water. Gardenias are suitable for informal upright, slanting, semi-cascade, cascade, root-over-rock, twin-trunk, clump, and multiple-trunk styles, and in all sizes. [click to read full post]
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An evergreen native of the Pacific-northwest, California and western Nevada incense cedar is an excellent ornamental tree that can be used in the garden to add a stately ambiance even in droughty conditions. Its bright green fragrant foliage is composed of overlapping scales arranged in flat, elongated sprays on pendulous branches. Bright colored cones ornament the branch tips in late summer and fall making the incense cedar a popular inclusion in Christmas flower arrangements and the wood of the tree is used for making pencils because of its straight grain and ability to be whittled into a point. The gray to cinnamon red bark is exfoliating, providing additional winter interest. [click to read full post]
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You may think of ground covers being plants of last resort for planting in waste areas where nothing else will grow but that is not necessarily the case. Author, Barbara W. Ellis, shows you that ground covers can be exciting and beautiful as well as useful. She also points out that a well chosen ground cover requires less water and fewer pesticides, fertilizers and other chemicals. By following the suggestions offered by Ellis, you can create a landscape the looks good, requires less maintenance, and is environmentally friendly. [click to read full post]
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Thanksgiving Rose
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This medium-sized evergreen tree native to China and Japan is an attractive ornamental dual purpose tree with edible fruit. It has large prominently veined leaves that are dark green on the top with a downy rust-colored underside. The glossy leaves are usually borne in whorls and are stiff, thick and glossy. Panicles of small white fragrant flowers are produced in fall and give way to clusters of small oval to round and pear-shaped fruit that contain 1 to 10 seeds and ripen in late winter and early spring to yellow or orange. The fruits are difficult to harvest because of though stalk that attaches them to the tree. They are very acid and cause pucker if picked green but develop a delicious flavor when ripe. Plants are attractive landscape specimens but can be trained as a ground cover or espalier by heavy pruning. Its shallow root system requires shallow cultivation. Over 800 cultivars have been developed. [click to read full post]
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This year the beginning of Hanukkah falls on November 28, the same day as Thanksgiving. Hanukkah, also called the Festival of Lights and Feast of Dedication, is an eight day Jewish holiday that falls between late November and late December, depending on the year. The holiday commemorates a Jewish military victory over Greek troops in the second century B.C. when a day’s worth of lamp oil lasted for eight days when the menorah was lighted in the recaptured temple in Jerusalem. Don’t expect to see another time when Thanksgiving and the beginning of Hanukkah occur on the same day in the near future; last time it happened was in 1888 and it is not expected to happen again for 57 to over 70,000 years depending on how you calculate it. [click to read full post]
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One of the top floribundas for exhibition, ‘Lavaglut’ has deep red flowers with 24-30 petals. The flowers are produced in clusters of 10-20 and open flat so that the golden stamens are visible within. They are produced in abundance and are resistant to both heat and rain. The vigorous bush is upright, compact and bears leaves that are bronze green before turning dark glossy green. It is generally considered disease resistant but may develop blackspot. Flowers are long lasting in the vase. The name ‘Lavaglut’ means “lava glow” in German and refers to the deep red flower color that does not fade. [click to read full post]
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