Plant Profile: Southern Live Oak (Quercus virginiana)
Karen One of the icons of the deep South, the live oak is often shown draped with Spanish moss. Its huge massive size, wide-spreading horizontal branches, and stiff, glossy, leathery leaves…
Book Review: In the Garden: Who’s Been Here?
Gardens are made up of more than plants and Lindsay Barret Beorge’s book, In the Garden: Who’s Been Here? introduces the reader to some of the animals that might be…
Botany for Gardeners: Taxonomy of Dicots-Identifying the Mallow Family (Malvaceae)
The mallow family is best known for cotton, cocao, okra, hibiscus, and hollyhock, but includes other plants with showy flowers such as sidalcea, globe mallow, and lavatera, as well as…
Plant Profile: Shrubby St. Johnswort (Hypericum prolificum)
This native of eastern and central United States is a small compact deciduous shrub with medium texture and rounded form. It produces yellow flowers about one inch across with five…
Common Pests of Roses
Roses are known to be susceptible to a variety of diseases and pests and compared to many other plants commonly grown in gardens they are. Of course, the kind of…
Plant Profile: Bottlebrush Buckeye (Aesculus parviflora)
A native of woodlands in southeastern United States, bottlebrush buckeye is a wide, suckering deciduous shrub that needs plenty of room to grow. In summer, its palmately compound leaves are…
Book Review: Teaming with Microbes: The Organic Gardener’s Guide to the Soil Food Web
A book on soil microbiology may not grab you as a good read but you might be surprised. Teaming with Microbes makes soil and its inhabitants into a fascinating subject…
Weeds and Their Control: Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca)
Common milkweed is native to most of the United States east of the Rocky Mountains. It prefers full sun, fertile soil, and mesic conditions but tolerates much less and can…
Plant Profile: St. Dabeoc’s Heath (Daboecia cantabrica)
Native of western Ireland, France, Northern Spain, and Portugal, this evergreen shrub can be upright and tidy or prostrate and unkempt. It grows up to two feet tall and wide,…
Insects and Their Control: Asiatic Garden Beetle (Autoserica castanea)
Asiatic garden beetle (AGB) is a native of Japan and China. In 1922 it was first seen in the United States at a location in New Jersey. Although not a…