Butterfly gardening Letting all that milkweed grow around my yard has paid off and we have some monarch butterfly caterpillars in there chomping away! Though we don’t recall seeing any adult monarchs flitting through the garden, they must have visited long enough to deposit some eggs. We have seen plenty of tiger swallowtails and always …
Bees and Pollinators Insects are responsible for one out of every three bites of food. With new reports showing pollinators remain in steep decline, let’s get straight to what we can do about it. Fortunately, it’s been proven that regular homeowners can achieve a great deal! Here are 10 ideas to help pollinators from home—from simply adding wildflowers …
A late morning glory The Japanese species are my favorites with their huge flowers and unusual shapes. I mostly prefer the Ipomoea tricolor ‘Heavenly Blue’ because of the heavenly blue color of their blooms. This species has double-sized flowers, compared to the common species Ipomoea purpurea. The first time I grew the ‘Heavenly Blue’ morning glories, I started …
Balloon flower Balloon flower (Platycodon) is an especially easy-to-grow plant that prefers full sun to part shade and organically-rich, well-drained soil. Choose cultivars with blossoms of blue, white, purple, or pink, in single- or double-petal varieties. Silvery-green stems may exceed 2 feet in height, bearing balloon-like buds that open into starry blossoms in July and …