caterpillar alert: who’s eating my cabbage and broccoli?

Check out these stunning Types of Geraniums that can be a great addition to both home and gardens. We have picked the best ones for you!

Fountain in Oxford Botanic gardens.

Lily themed week shows some more waterlilies and tips for a happy pond.

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.

White is the second most useful colour in the garden after green. I am progressively increasing the number and variety of white and grey plants that I grow.

This picture was taken in late March at the University Botanic Gardens Oxford. I’m not sure of the variety, but, they remind me of tete a tete.

‘The Garden of Reading: An Anthology of Twentieth-century Short Fiction About Gardens and Gardeners’ edited by Michele Slung.

Sometimes as gardeners, we place all the emphasis on plants. However, a few well positioned ornaments and focal points can heighten the interest and drama within a garden.

Arduaine Garden in Scotland is well-known in international Rhododendron circles for the number of wonderful species grown here, many of which are considered tender elsewhere and grow unusually under a canopy of mature Japanese larch. To some people, rhododendrons are those unpleasant purple-flowered objects which clog up our native woodlands. This is but one species, Rhododendron ponticum or a hybrid of it which spreads rapidly both by seed and sucker. Arduaine’s collection is extensive containing about 400 distinct species. The rhododendrons range from the large-leaved giants such as Rhododendron protistum, Rhododendron sinogrande and Rhododendron macabeanum to the small-leaved, high altitude plants which are often classed as rock plants, a sample of which would include Rhododendron fastigiatum, impeditum and orthocladum. In between these two extremes sit the majority of species of differing sizes with a variety of foliage shapes and an astonishing range of flower colour and form. One of the specialities is the only Rhododendron from Ceylon – Rhododendron arboreum subsp. zeylanicum.

I will use Shangri-la as an all encompassing name for spiritually based gardens and areas of harmonious natural beauty stealing a name from James Hilton in his novel Lost Horizon.

Many of us enjoy searching for monarch caterpillars on milkweed in late summer and thinking about the next generation of beautiful monarch butterflies. Along the way, one may be surprised to encounter a lesser-known caterpillar getting its fill of milkweed alongside the monarch caterpillars. Milkweed tussock moth, Euchaetes egle, sometimes referred to as the milkweed tiger moth, specializes in milkweeds and dogbanes for larval food. One can find these cute (in my opinion) caterpillars munching away on common milkweed, Asclepias syriaca, at the South Carolina Botanical Garden.

FOR THOSE OF YOU IN THE AREA, meaning the Hudson Valley of New York State or thereabouts, these spring events here in the garden and elsewhere may be of interest: Saturday March 14, Spring Garden Day, Cornell Cooperative Extension of Rensselaer County. (518) 272-4210. This popular, day-long annual event in Troy, New York, includes a choice of classes, from growing orchids at home to successful vegetable gardening.