Watering Ideas, Tips & Guides

We’re off to East Tennessee today to visit with Elin Johnson:

Chilly months pose a challenge to grow plants outdoors, but you can definitely start some beautiful ones indoors! The specimens in this list look stunning and propagate easily, too!

White ZZ plants are not exactly “White” but have a tint of yellow and white on the leaves, which makes them appear very different from the regular green and rare black types.

Home is where the heart is—and where all my favorite decor items are, too. Being a design writer means I take creating a comfortable, stylish home seriously. I’m well aware of the transformative power a cozy-as-can-be throw blanket or brilliant organizational item has.  In case you are in the market for decor that balances fun with functionality, I recently took stock of my favorite home items, ones with my forever stamp of approval. Some are investments, some are steals, and all make my house feel a little homier.  Scroll on for 12 of my must-have home products. 

Whenever I am working to resolve water problems in a landscape, I must acknowledge that water will always win. The best we can do is creatively direct it toward the areas where we would like it to end up, with a focus on minimizing erosion damage and retaining as much water as possible for use on site. Plants can be part of the solution, and some erosion control systems even double as useful outdoor spaces like patios and walkways. Here are a few ideas to get you thinking about how you can manage rainwater in your own garden.

Did you know that you can use shower curtains in your garden to add depth to small spaces, and cover a bland wall or fence? Here are some cool ideas for doing it right!

The winding peaks and troughs of Arizona’s Verde Valley, weaving through jagged ochre mountains, dreamy cactus-clad deserts and deep volcanic canyons, make up some of the most iconic images of the American West. For thousands of years, the valley has been home to both the Verde River, one of Arizona’s only perennial wild rivers, and to Indigenous communities from the ancient Sinagua and Hohokam peoples to present-day tribes including the Yavapai, Hopi, Apache and Zuni. It is also home to 270 species of birds, 94 species of mammals and 76 species of native amphibians and reptiles. All this makes the Verde River key to the history, culture and ecosystem of central Arizona. 

Oxalis triangularis, also known as false shamrock, is an eye-catching bulbous perennial that makes an excellent and long-lived house plant. Bold, dramatic foliage in shades of dark purple to wine-red creates a striking contrast to blush-white flowers borne in summer. The leaves are three-lobed, hence the name of shamrock which it resembles, though is not actually related to. Oxalis triangularis is native to from Brazil. Its leaves have extra fascination because they open during the day and close at night.

Ranging from $500 to $5,000 per kilogram, saffron, or the Red Gold as it is commonly referred to, takes a total of about 150,000 flowers to produce just one kilogram! Now you know why it would be a great idea to have its plant at home!

The flowering time of irises depends on factors like climatic and growing conditions. However, they do have a stipulated blooming period that we’ll discuss below.

When garden space is at a premium, growing beets in containers is an easy way to cultivate this favorite vegetable. By adding beets to your garden-vegetable list, you’re getting a double harvest: Both beet leaves and beetroots are nutritious and easy to prepare. Beets can tolerate frosts as well as warmer weather, giving you a container-gardening crop throughout the seasons. Whether you prefer to start your beets indoors or to direct sow them, you can grow them out in a pot in just 2 months or less after germination. In this article, you’ll read about why and how to grow beets in containers, from beet seeds and seeding to potting mix and fertilizing.

A solar water feature is a wonderful addition to the garden, bringing the relaxing sound of a babbling brook into a residential space. Solar water features also have the added benefit of being much better for the environment than their mains-powered counterparts, using clean energy that won’t cost – or harm – the earth.

House plants in the office can help to reduce stress levels, increase concentration and therefore prductivity, and generally make the office a nicer environment to work in. The types of house plant that are suited to an office depend on your particular office – is it bright, shady, warm or cold? Many offices may have air conditioning, which can be drying for plants and unsuitable for house plants from tropical regions. Assess your office before buying house plants, whether it’s at home or in the work place.

Overwatering is one of the biggest issues that can result in a demise of any plant. To ensure your green friends are safe from it – here are some home items for your rescue!

Ponytail palms are not exactly the fastest or the tallest growing specimens out there, so people are always in lookout for ways to make their’s stand out from the rest!

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Parrotia persica, also known as Persian ironwood, is a deciduous tree mainly grown for its spectacular autumn display when its leaves turn shades of yellow, orange, red and purple. It’s a wide-spreading, slow-growing tree with bark that flakes away, creating an interesting texture and revealing younger bark below. Dense heads of red flowers will appear in late-winter and early-spring. The flowers of Parrotia persica do not have petals; instead, buds open to reveal attractive red stamen.

Acidanthera (Acidanthera murielae syn. Gladiolus murielae) – also known as the Abyssinian gladiolus, callianthus, sword lily or peacock lily – is a graceful summer-flowering perennial. It has erect grass-like leaves and slender stems up to 1m tall, each one bearing several nodding, funnel-shaped, white flowers with purple throats. The flowers are attractive to a range of pollinators, including bees, which visit for nectar and pollen.

Goji berries (Lycium barbarum) are a popular ‘superfood’ to eat fresh or dried. Native to China, they’re packed with vitamins and antioxidants and have been used in Chinese medicine for over a thousand years. They’re easy to grow at home in the UK and bear fruit after just one or two years. The best thing about growing your own goji berries is that you can eat them straight from the bush – most commercially available goji berries are dried.

For most of the Southwest, “dry” is a normal state of affairs. We live in a complex mosaic of arid, semi-arid, and seasonally arid zones that make most generalizations impossible. And an especially wet or dry season can throw all calculations off, making our usual watering routines irrelevant. We must be willing to adjust to ensure plant health in our gardens.

Peace lily, Spathiphyllum wallisii, is a popular, low-maintenance house plant with glossy, green leaves and white flowers, called spathes. Native to Central America, it’s used to a warm, humid environment and is perfect for growing in a bright bathroom. Peace lilies are easy to grow and relatively trouble-free.

Are you wondering about the ways you can use to grow houseplants without soil? Can it be sand, water, or any other medium? Let’s learn!.

People usually don’t have any idea on how long do peace lily flowers last. If you, too, have this confusion, we’ll clear everything out in this article!

If you are wondering – what could be the Christmas Cactus Meaning, and whether growing one would be symbolic or not – well, we have the answers for you!

How to Grow Beardtongue (Penstemon) Penstemon spp.

There are no sleuths investigating a dastardly crime here, it’s just that all but one of my contributions for Jim’s meme at Garden Ruminations this week are inside and undercover! Snowdrops, both common and specials are all but over here, but Galanthus ‘Peardrop’ (above), my star performer, is still strutting her stuff, flaunting her HUGE blooms, a full 2″ (about 5 cms) from the top of her green ovary to the tip of the outer perianth segments – she’s gorgeous!

Tips for Growing Cayenne Peppers Capsicum annuum ‘Cayenne’

Whether you have a steep, sloping garden or just a small bank, there are some key facts you need to know about gardening on a slope.

Common beech (Fagus sylvatica) is one of the most majestic of European native trees, yet also makes an excellent formal hedge as it tolerates regular clipping. Although deciduous, beech is still good to use as a screening hedge as growth is dense, twiggy, and the dead leaves usually remain on the branches for much of the winter, often until the new leaves appear in spring. There are both green and purple-leaved varieties of common beech which are suitable for hedging. The purple-leaved form (Fagus sylvatica ‘Purpurea’ is commonly known as copper beech. To grow as individual trees, the common beech species becomes too big for all but the largest gardens, but there are columnar (fastigiate) and weeping forms of beech that are much more compact in size.

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This article has been checked for horticultural accuracy by Oliver Parsons.

If this is the first time you’ve come across the phrase “crevice garden,” it won’t be the last. This style of gardening is on the tongues of every gardening taste maker I know and is an approach to gardening whose time has come. Crevice gardens bring together a number of elements that make them must-haves in the modern garden. They are water wise, architecturally striking, perfect for small gardens and containers, and provide ideal conditions for growing a wide range of beautiful and unusual plants. Most critical, it is a style of gardening that not only brings a striking, fresh aesthetic to the garden, it also provides ideal conditions for a wide range of plants and helps them survive whatever extremes our climates throw at them. So whether you garden in steamy North Carolina, high-and-dry Denver, or frigid Maine, crevice gardening will work for you and allow you to grow a wide range of fascinating plants.

Japanese aralia or paper plant, Fatsia japonica, is a fantastic foliage plant, native to Japan. A medium sized shrub, Fatsia japonica bears glossy evergreen leaves and spherical, ivy-like flowers, followed by black berries. It’s a great choice for a shady spot in the garden, and it can also be grown as a house plant.