bigger the better: aralia cordata and its cousins

Sweet Potato Flowers are not only beautiful to look at, but also offer many uses! Let’s have a look at them in detail!

Aldi

The all-year round wait is over – Fantastic Gardeners brings you the jolly hugs of evergreen trees! From this month forward, real Christmas tree delivery is available at every door in London. Forget the hassle and concentrate on gift selection or yummy recipe browsing, while we take care of the centrepiece in your holiday decoration.

As the country begins taking stock of the damage caused by hurricane Ophelia and works to restore power to much of Scotland and Northern England, gardeners throughout the country are lamenting the destruction of their gardens.

In the cold wet winter it is a good time to plan where to visit as the year improves. The South West is the obvious place to start your visiting tour of gardens containing exotic plants.

For something a bit different this book on botanic art covers some of the unusual colours from black flowers, plants and seaweed like strange green, blue and puce pink.

A pothos at Patch Plants

St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, is a popular celebration in the United States, due to the number of Americans, 10.5%, with Irish heritage. One million Irish emigrated to North America, Australia, or other parts of Great Britain in the mid-1800s because of the potato disease now known as late blight. Late blight, caused by the water mold, Phytophthora infestans, destroyed the Irish potato crops in 1845 through 1849 and caused the Irish Potato Famine. Another one million people died from hunger or disease.

I’ll be roaming the Northeast in the early going, in places as close to home as the Berkshires of Massachusetts and the Hudson Valley of New York, but also across Massachusetts and as far as New Hampshire, Maine, New Jersey and coastal Connecticut. Events here in the garden will begin again in April; stay tuned for a fuller schedule of those, with just the first couple mentioned below.What’s planned already:Saturday, February 19, 2 PM: Lecture to benefit Berkshire Botanical Garden, Monument Mountain Regional High School, Great Barrington, MA.Thursday, March 3, 7 PM: R.J. Ju

And then, this year, came ‘Bellfire’ (top and bottom photos) a supposedly more upright (to 24 inches) and genteel creature, a first cousin of ‘Bonfire’ and from the same New Zealand breeders. My plants are still so small I don’t have much to show or photograph, but as I say, all the signs are encouraging. They’re a little floppy yet due to their youth and the endless rain we’ve suffered. This is one I’d snap up at the midsummer sales and try to carry over, if you can find it, a potential investment plant like ‘Bonfire’ turned out to be.What begonia currently has your attention, and if you’ve known it for awhile, do you have any tips to share about making it a permanent member of the family? Do tell.Categoriesannuals &

I AM REMINDED BY MY ANNUAL EMAIL from a venerable gardener in Rhode Island that paperwhites are lushes, and need a stiff drink their first two waterings to stay compact and less tipsy than they would otherwise. Depending on the “proof” of the alcohol you use, the mixture can be about 1:8 alcohol:water; her recommendations for serving them on the rocks are on this old post, and a fact sheet from Cornell can be had here.

EXPLODING Eremurus, why vulnerability is good for us, and the answer to why bird poop is white—all, and more, in the latest collections of links I’ve loved lately while staring into my computer screen (which I alternately do between long gazes out the window). Five links worth exploring: