Gardenig in state Missouri. Tips & Guides

Discover a diverse array of Common Missouri Mushrooms with our comprehensive guide. From the prized Morels to the vibrant Chicken of the Woods, explore their seasons, habitats, edibility, and unique characteristics!

We’re visiting with Marilyn Regnier today. We’ve visited her garden before (Marilyn’s Missouri-Inspired Garden in Minnesota), and today she’s joining in the fun of looking back and sharing the highlights of her 2023 gardening season.

Missouri, situated in the heart of the United States, boasts a range of USDA Hardiness Zones (5 to 7) due to its diverse climate and geographical variations. In this comprehensive guide, you will learn about the planting zones of Missouri, providing local gardeners with valuable insights to make informed decisions for thriving landscapes.

The Quinine tree or large shrub has provided medical cures for malaria and fever for 400 years. The ground up bark is the key substance for this and as the additive in tonic water.

Everyone loves falafel—it’s a year-round staple, and the frozen options at Trader Joe’s make it incredibly easy to prepare. But today, you should probably rid your freezer shelves of any Trader Joe’s falafel: In the company’s third food recall this week, on July 28 Trader Joe’s recalled its fan-favorite Fully Cooked Falafel after being informed by the supplier that rocks were found in the food.

Homegrown tomatoes taste heavenly when they are sweet with a hint of tart, acidic flavor. If you want to grow the same, there is a science behind it. Learn the Number One Technique to Produce Sweeter Tomatoes to enjoy a sweet summer harvest!

While the Christmas tree takes the front-and-center stage during this holiday season, supported by a cast of poinsettias, cyclamens, kalanchoes, Christmas cactuses, and amaryllises, hollies often find themselves relegated to wreaths, garlands, and candle adornments. Years ago, I learned from Fred Galle’s tome, “Hollies: The Genus Ilex” (Timber Press, OR 1997), that hollies were quintessential Christmas symbols extensively used for centuries in holiday wreaths and Christmas decorations. Galle wrote that in London in 1851, 250,000 bunches of English hollies (Ilex aquifolium) were sold and adorned houses, churches, street corners, and marketplaces. In some parts of England, residents retained the holly sprigs until the following year because they believed it would protect their homes from lightning strikes.

Though I cannot see without a hand magnifying lens if they have the requisite tiny markings, I’m betting from its overall appearance and velvety surface that this is the larval stage of the cabbage white butterfly, Pieris rapae, because I have also seen its adult stage flying around, a smallish butterfly with a couple of smudgy spots on each white wing.This article from Missouri Botanical Garden is extremely detailed on my latest visitor, also known as the imported cabbage worm, and other pests of cabbage relatives, including cabbage looper and the caterpillar of the diamondback moth. The latter two caterpillars are smooth, not velvety, among other clues to differentiating among the three.As with all caterpillars, these can be controlle

(Note on Gallery: Clicking on a thumbnail gives you a large, higher-quality image.)Winterberry hollies are native to swampy areas from Canada south to Florida, from Wisconsin and Missouri east.  Despite their heritage in wetlands, I grow my plants in normal to dry soil, at the edges of my hilly outer fields. I just don’t have wet lowland to offer on my windy hillside.Though they’ll fruit much better in a moist year than a dry one (as with all fruiting plant

Out of the leaf litter they ascend.When I purchased this native of woodsy streambanks in northwestern California and southwestern Oregon for my New York garden, it was still called Peltiphyllum peltatum. I have a thing for big-leaved plants (likeAstilboides, its cousinRodgersia, and even thuggishPetasites). I had to tryDarmera, whose leaves can reach 18 in

My choice was the Chaenomeles named ‘Cameo’ (above photo) as this double-flowered cultivar is called. It is variously identified as Chaenomeles x superba (a hybrid between the Japanese species C. japonica and the taller C. speciosa, a Chinese type, says the Missouri Botanical Garden) or simply C. speciosa (by woody plant expert Michael Dirr, author of the industry “bible” of woody plants). Dirr says it’s one of his favorite quinces, and “a long a prized plant in the Dirr garden.”Of course nobody agrees on the habit or size of ‘Cameo,’ either, with wholesale nursery Monrovia calling it “good for a mounding groundcover or on a slope,” at a mature size of maybe 3 feet high and 5 wide, about what Missouri Botanical lists. Nonsense, Dirr apparently believes, writing that it’s twice that. Hardiness? The opinion poll says Zones 4 or 5 to 8 or 9.As ever, with this kind of conflicting “expert” help, it’s a wonder that gardeners ever know where to place a plant or how much ro

One feature I look forward to each year is the garden’s annual Plants of Merit list. I spoke recently with Daria McKelvey there about those standout varieties, from showy begonias to a summer-blooming small native tree with excellent fall color, just in time to guide my springtime plant shopping.Daria is supervisor of the Kemper Center for Home Gardening at Missouri Botanical, where she oversees indoor gardens, its Plant Doctor answer line, and a lot of the website features I rely on so much.Read along as you listen to the April 11

Travis Hall is supervisor of the Horticulture Division at Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis, where a project is under way to save Abies fraseri. He helped me understand what’s up with the decline of wild populations of this iconic holiday tree, and the Garden’s efforts to help save this species and others. (Fraser fir detail photo, above, by Harold Smith via Wikimedia Commons.)Read along as you listen to the December 27, 2021 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on Apple Podcasts (iTunes) or Spotify or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here).the threatened

Echinaceas are real dazzlers in the late-summer border: sturdy daisies standing erect with flowers that resemble sets of spinning saucers. The colourful sun-ray petals surround bronzed, almost metallic cones. These prickly centres also give echinacea its name, for Ekhînos is Greek for hedgehog.

Echinaceas are real dazzlers in the late-summer border: sturdy daisies standing erect with flowers that resemble sets of spinning saucers. The colourful sun-ray petals surround bronzed, almost metallic cones. These prickly centres also give echinacea its name, for Ekhînos is Greek for hedgehog.

As a born and raised Missourian, any plant with my home state in the name immediately earns my endearment.But even for folks raised outside of the Show Me State,

A dusty Nick Stanek stepped off his tractor after an evening of round baling hay.

This post may contain affiliate links, which means that I may receive a commission if you make a purchase using these links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. In our attempts to save the bees, many of us are

This post may contain affiliate links, which means that I may receive a commission if you make a purchase using these links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Each gardening location has unique en

If you have young ones, pets, cattle, or frequent visitors who don’t know much about plants, it’s better to be extra careful with what you’re planting because these plants can even kill!

Humans are inherently curious, and that’s what leads us to such wonderful discoveries. So you should never let any query remain unanswered even if it sounds absurd! One such question is whether plants can hear music or any sound for that matter or not? Let’s find out Do Plants Like Music or not!

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If your succulent is looking all stretched out and leggy, it could mean that it is suffering from a condition called Etiolation, meaning, it is in dire need of sunlight. Read on to know why succulents tend to stretch out and Tips to Fix Stretched and Leggy Succulents!